We had our Constituency Party Conference reportback meeting last night. I made the following speech.


quote

Did you vote for the reference back of the CAC report? The delegate from Rushcliffe CLP moved reference back to overturn the CAC decision that their motion, which was almost identical to the one we carried but did not send, had been ruled out of order and that the immigration topic had been split into two, one, which was prioritised and called Border Security Command.

That motion is a disgrace to the Labour Party; while people are being suspended for damaging Labour’s ability to campaign on anti racist platform, this motion was placed upon our conference agenda based on the advice from Labour to Win.

The motion continues the rhetoric pursued by our front bench over the last nine months but most egregiously, while noting the government’s cancelling of the Tory’s Rwanda scheme, makes it clear that the government intends to negotiate additional return schemes with countries deemed safe. They also clearly proposed to continue the practise of subsidising often totalitarian regimes to stop refugees reaching the UK or Calais.

The proposal to use counterterrorism powers in seeking down over-stayers or incorrectly documented migrants is a cruel overreach.

The announcement of a successful raid and the consequent deportations the morning of the debate is another act of contempt by the labour government towards anti-racists within the party and the electorate. We can see locally in South London [and Glasgow] where immigration raids have been stopped by mass pickets that this is not a popular policy amongst the electorate.

This motion was moved after the government has abolished one of the very few entry routes to the UK.

The motion makes no reference to abolishing hostile environment, nor establishing safe routes, nor repealing Patel and Braverman’s racist nationality and protest laws and has no place on Labour Party conference agenda. This is part of the problem that Cooper and the government never talk about welcoming workers and refugees; to them its all a distressed purchase.

Those of you who support the authors of this motion and those who manipulated the agenda to ensure it might be debated, you need to have a long hard talk with yourselves.

This isn’t right. It’s the third time I have raised this. I’m clearly not being listened to so if you agree you should repeat what I say.


I did not get a satisfactory answer to the questions I asked. I posted this in Jan 25, and backdated it to the date I gave the speech.

Lewisham North and Border Security Command
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