I went to London region’s fringe meeting. These are held inside the conference centre and must be sponsored by a region. This meeting was called “Getting involved in politics”. It’s platform consisted of Dawn Butler MP, Robbie Scott (TULO), Miriam Myrwitch (London Labour), and two GMB voluntary officers from the Labour Party branch and the Parliamentary Staffs branch. I don’t know if the platform learnt anything, but some probing questions were asked, mainly about the Labour Party.
Personally, while I know that the debating skills and atmosphere during the peak of Corbynism left much to be desired, punctuated with frequent issuing of codes of conduct emphasising anti-bullying and anti-racist behaviour with a bit on the preservation of dignity. The GMB officials were, to me, two young women and have given up Labour Party meetings because they are horrible, which frankly I can believe. One speaker from the floor, stated that she had left the Labour Party because she had been bullied and denied the opportunity to stand for her council because she was pro-Palestinian. We i.e. the Labour Party are going to have to be much better.
While turning my notes into a blog article, I had a quick look the codes of conduct and members pledge. While their length reminds me a bit of the complex rules installed into RoboCop in RoboCop 2, which he had to purge and return to the simpler 3 rules from the first version in order to do what was right, the codes make promises of a better state of affairs. They state among other things that, “The Labour Party believes that everyone in the organisation should be treated with dignity and respect”.
It also states in its Social Media Policy,
It is perfectly possible to have vehement disagreements without descending into personal abuse, shaming people or exhibiting bullying behaviour. Forcefully made points and criticisms of the political views of others are totally legitimate, personal attacks are not. Debates amongst party members should be comradely, acknowledging that whatever our diverse views, we are one party with shared goals. Derogatory descriptions of the positions of others, as well as derogatory language, should be avoided.
The code of conduct includes a definition of bullying which includes,
- Frequent unjustifiable criticism about minor things
- Threatening disciplinary or other action deliberately to intimidate e.g. making threats or comments about selection/deselection without foundation
As suggested above, the codes and definition are very long, and so I prefer the ACAS definition,
“Bullying may be characterised as offensive, intimidating, malicious or insulting behaviour, an abuse or misuse of power through means that undermine, humiliate, denigrate or injure the recipient.”
You can see elsewhere that I am standing for Labour’s NCC, and while it can only consider complaints about some members, as a long time workers companion, I know what bullying is, and will do me best to stop it while remaining fair to both complainants and alleged culprits. The vote will take place at #Lab25.