What’s a (LP) conference delegate do?

What’s a (LP) conference delegate do?

You need to be in the conference room for the debates (and votes). It runs from Sunday through to Wednesday lunch and ends with the Leader’s speech. It is likely that Woman’s Conference will be on the preceding Saturday. The most important task is to represent your members by voting on motions, rule changes, reports from the NEC, Officers and the National Policy Forum and in elections because some elections are still conducted at conference. Since a delegation is responsible for representing the organisation that sent it, it is expected that the delegation should vote together …

Labour’s Democracy Review

People in the Labour Party are beginning to wake up to the Democracy Review. A correspondent found the following documents on the Labour Party site and I have mirrored them here.

The review is being conducted in stages, and the next stage for which the call for evidence ends on the 23rd March is about local organisation and membership engagement. The third phase will be about National structures and the call for evidence closes on June 29th. I was invited to speak to one of our branches and used this slide set, which talks about its governance, its timetable and topics, and details the links to be used to submit evidence.

The Labour Party documents found for me are,

  1. Party Democracy Review, Terms of Reference v2
  2. Party Democracy Review Leaflet v3
  3. Running a consultation event in your local party

Submissions are best made by email, or via a web form hidden in the party site.

I have written previously about this here and also on my other blog, but this article is meant to be anchor for things that help others make their mind up as to what changes they want. …

Working Title

Today, I wrote to Labour List and proposed to write an article for them.

I’ll take help on the title but currently working with “Privacy Law, canvassing and registered supporters”

Next year, 28th May, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation comes into force. Among other things it will prohibit the storage and processing of canvass returns without freely given, informed and explicit consent. We will have to prove that consent has been obtained and be able to tell electors everything we know about them.

The simplest answer to these new compliance requirements is to extend the registered supporter arrangement, make it an ongoing contract so that the agreement can include privacy clauses. The ambition would be to extend the scheme to high proportions of our voter base. For this purpose, the fee would need to be low, nearer £3 than £25.

ooOOOoo

I should add that without some form of reform, the retention of the Registered Supporters data in the membership system is in my mind questionably legal, as it breaks the storage limitation principle. When compliance ruled that Registered Supporters could not be invited to member’s meetings, they made the sole purpose of holding the data the leadership election. This purpose was confirmed when the NEC required re-registration of the registered supporters at £25 in 2016; the consequence of such a decision to my mind negated the purpose of the original registrations. …

Labour’s Democracy Review

When Jeremy Corbyn announced that he was planning an NEC away day to review Labour’s rules, I made some notes on my blog, which I have updated via comments, I plan to work them into a submission and submit them it’s successor and hope others will support them. The other blog has comments disabled after 7 days, so if you have something to add, please comment here.

Submissions are best made by email, or via a web form hidden in the party site. …

Again

Over the summer, the balance of power on Labour’s NEC changed and it decided to increase the cadre of CLP representatives by three. We are now in the process of nominating candidates. Here’s the Centre Left Grass Roots Alliance slate.

  • Yasmine Dar – who is a member of Gorton CLP and a Manchester councillor.(Membership Number: L1173052 )
  • Rachel Garnham – who is secretary of Mid Bedfordshire CLP and a member of the National Policy Forum. (Membership Number: A777413)
  • Jon Lansman – who is a member of Bermondsey and Old Southwark CLP and a long standing campaigner for progressive policies and democracy within Labour.(Membership Number: A018501)
 …

In Writing

More rules shit! Chapter 7.IX.6

Any notice required to be given under these rules shall be in writing which may include electronic communication. Notices to be sent to affiliated organisations and Party units shall be addressed to the secretary thereof.

Correspondence must be between Secretary positions. …