politics – Page 22 – davelevy.info

Energy and Ed

Ed Miliband introduced the Economy debate, speaking on his shadow portfolio, Energy. This was an excellent speech, it made me sad we couldn’t get him in, it reminded me of what we may have lost. ( video | text ). He called for a windfall tax, and the adoption of renewables. He claimed, now, “It’s cheaper to save the planet than destroy it”.

The speech listed a list of opportunities, detailed Labour’s opposition to fracking and called out the appointment of Jacob Ress Mogg, a climate change denier as Business Secretary. …

The Rules Debate

Each year at Labour Conference, there is a rules debate and despite the bleats from supporters of the NEC, that we should be talking to voters and not about ourself, they always bring up rule changes, published the day before conference, thus only available in the first Conference Arrangement Committee report, it comes with a series of recommendations and this year the NEC recommended we passed theirs and rejected everyone else’s.

The debate became one of CLP rights. Last year Conference mandated that where time permitted, selection longlisting committees should be 50% from the CLP; this was ignored by the NEC who came back with a rewrite to allow them to continue to pursue their two donkeys and a lion strategy while in a number of cases, denying popular local left-wing councillors a position on either the long or short lists. The NEC came to conference with a rewrite of this rule, as did the CLP moving the original change. The CLP amendment fell, the result is presented in Table 1 below.

	For	Against
CLP	21.09%	28.09%
Affiliate	21.13%	28.87%
Total	43.05%	56.95%

Table 1: Result of Card Vote 7, Parliamentary Selection Procedures from CAC2

There was a well supported rule change to permit members of the Party who were currently suspended from the whip to stand in trigger ballots and also a motion banning lobbyists from standing as MPs. The former was designed to allow Jeremy Corbyn to participate in a trigger ballot; as the rules stand, the Chief Whip can ensure that this does not happen. There was an interesting but I think ill-informed contribution from the delegate to Sheffield Hallam who raised the question as to what would have happened to Jared O’Mara if this rule had been in place, she implied that he might have been considered for the 2019 election. He wouldn’t, he resigned and his initial appointment by the NEC shows the danger of not consulting the local party.

My pet amendment, of inserting the ECHR into Labour’s rules was opposed and the NEC asked for remission, which the moving CLP agreed to; unfortunately, the Chair permitted this to be voted upon despite telling conference it had been withdrawn. I sought to move a point of order but they have invented a procedure where one has to justify the point of order to the speakers desk who told me that it was under-control. It wasn’t the point, delegates were being wrongly advised. While I consider a point of order that the speaker is talking rubbish is not a valid point of order, the point that the Chair is talking rubbish and has misguided conference is a valid point of order. It should have been allowed.

The NEC amendments which were carried included placing a 1 year waiting period on affiliate and CLP rule changes, whereas it seems the NEC can make them with under 24 hours notice. This is a disgusting piece of factionalism and control. One consequence of this is that the so-called three year rule is effectively a five year ban on reconsidering rule changes.

Another change is to cap CLP delegation sizes. I wouldn’t mind this if the floor could call a card vote but it can’t. (I need to redo my delegate power chart). Giving the floor the power to call a card vote was one of the changes proposed by CLPD. I don’t know of any large CLP that sends its full entitlement as they get very large very quickly. CLPs are entitled to one delegate/250 members.

In my notes for a speech, I was not called, I included the slogan, adopted from the open source movement, “clever people with good ideas and work elsewhere”. Making rule changes harder for CLPs and affiliates fails to recognise this.

This was post dated to the time of occurrence, it was finished on 4th Oct. …

The Finance Report

I attended Labour Conference as a delegate and I got to ask some finance questions, I only had a minute, so couldn’t ask them all and they took a while to answer, so the video is longer than necessary and the answers from the platform were not particularly comprehensive, but I was able to speak to Dianna, the outgoing Treasurer who gave me better answers in a personal (corridor) meeting.

The deficit, if not the size, was known when they set a budget. They report regularly to the business board which meets at least six times each year and as when necessary, they report to the NEC on current plans twice/year.

I was told in the Hall that the £6m political publishing was print bills for local elections incurred on behalf of local parties or campaign forums; later it was suggested that there is a corresponding income item, which I need to find. My initial scepticism is based on the fact that I&E statement has an election expense line and that is where I would expect election expenses to be reported.

The increase in the Senior Management Team cost is based on the fact that there are now 10 members of the SMT, up from 6. I wonder what this does to gender parity in the staffing budget.

I managed to ask my three questions within the allotted minute, but there are no supplementary questions permitted and one of the essential points made by Diana was the theory that membership is synchronised with the electoral cycle. I don’t believe this to be true! It would seem to be true of donations but not membership income. This seems to be aligned with leadership, and if so, will be exacerbated by the OMOV elections for the Leadership.

The NEC still have to either fix the decline in membership or find new but legal sources of income and as I have argued, the rich donors weren’t there for Blair, why would they be there for Starmer, although I can think of several very good reasons that became clear as the conference proceeded. …

Labour and Foreign Policy

I have just done the Labour List survey on Labour’s foreign policy advertised and written by the Labour Foreign Policy Group (Who they? Ed). I note that on their question on Brexit, they repeat the political trick used in the corrupted referendum, Do support the Leadership’s attempts to move on and make Brexit work or should we rejoin the Customs Union and Single Market or the EU, or just satisfy ourselves with a ‘closer relationship’.

I believe we need to re-join the Customs Union and Single Market, to alleviate the economic damage caused by the increased trade friction and this is a closer relationship with the EU. I also believe we should re-acquire our political rights i.e. rejoin. The Labour Leadership have a fantasy that the Tories hard Brexit can be fixed, and we can now see the beginnings of the Tories phase III, the repeal of the Working Time Directive, revoking the Banker’s bonus cap and the restarting of fracking. Wake up, we have an equally unprincipled Prime Minister who is an effective servant of the ERG and the UKIP entryists.

With respect to the survey, I wanted to vote for all three ‘No’s but couldn’t as it was a radio button widget answer. This is how they win, it’s called divide and rule and this is why the PR campaign won’t talk about systems until the principle is agreed.

I also said with respect to supporting the Ukraine that Labour should ensure that Russian money is expelled from UK politics and while the Tories and Leave campaigns are the obvious first port of call, Labour needs to make sure its own hands and the hands of its parliamentarians are clean!

I think my first principles would be that a Labour Government must promote democracy and the rule of law at home and abroad, democracies don’t war with each other, …

Big changes after CoFoE

The EU has the capability of placing a soporific blanket over much of its politics and also has a reputation for only reforming at the point of crisis. The last year has given it the opportunity to challenge both reputations. The EU held a citizen’s assembly driven Conference on the Future of Europe. (CoFoE). The idea was conceived by President Macron who in a 2019 speech called for this. It became an opportunity to try and raise the Union’s eyes above the trench warfare realpolitik of the EU. This article, overleaf, looks at the final proposals, on energy and climate change, healthcare, economics and social justice, and education. ...

Will CoFoE’s democracy come to be?

At the CTOE plenary meeting we discussed Von der Leyen’s state of the Union address, we are/were most focussed on what she said as a result of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

We noted that she concluded the speech with a call for a convention on the treaties, prioritising an inter-generational contract, to leave the world better than we find it for our children but also to make the accession of new countries easier and to ease decision making. She also welcomed the Conference out come and promised that citizen’s panels, “will now become a regular feature of our democratic life.”.

It was reported that there was little coverage of the commitment to reform in the speech in Germany. It was also reported that at the moment there are 17 member states opposed to a convention including the current presidency, the Czech republic, and its successor, Sweden. However circumstances change, and there is significant interest in the larger member states in specific reforms most obviously reform of the veto and possibly the extension of competencies, with defence, migration and energy markers being the obvious candidates, as a result of the war in Ukraine.

I am of the view that the Conference report opened a number of gates to a massive progressive improvement of the social and economic well being of the citizens of the European Union and Von der Leyen has in particular picked up on Migration policy as an area where it can do better, building a system based on dignity and respect. She also promises to incorporate citizens’ panels into the democratic fabric of the EU.

The CTOE agreed to continue to campaign for a convention, with the whole report of the Conference being on the table, and to continue to push for reform of the veto, and the implementation of transnational lists, which requires Council acquiescence. …

Labour and the EU

I have written an emergency motion for Labour Party Conference, I have ’till noon on Thursday to get it submitted, so better get a move on, unfortunately doing this from a CLP is a bit tricky . I need to check if it’s on the Agenda but that’s a bit tricky, I am not sure they have published all the motions to hoi-polloi like me yet.

Conference notes the announcement by Liz Truss on 19^th September that there will be no post Brexit trade deal with the USA, and that the Govt is once again postponing (16^th Sept) the imposition of the agreed customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.is a bit tricky, made worse by the direction not fo

Conference further notes that the Tory ‘Hard Brexit’ has led to reduced foreign inward investment, a worsening balance of trade deficit, reduced employment, a labour shortage in many industries, most obviously in agriculture, hospitality and in the NHS, jobs are being offshored to western Europe and sterling is at its worse exchange rate ever with both the dollar and the euro. The labour shortages are compounded by the xenophobia released by the referendum and the Tory’s “hostile environment”.

Conference believes that these negative economic consequences of Tory policy are significant contributors to the cost of living crisis.

Conference believes that to start reversing the damage inflicted by the Tory ‘Hard Brexit’ Britain needs to significantly reduce the trade frictions it has imposed on its imports of goods, services and labour from its biggest trading partner, the EU.

Conference resolves that Labour will call for a closer relationship with the EU in order to alleviate the trade frictions the Tories have introduced, that we will seek to rejoin Horizon Europe and Erasmus+, and that we will repeal the cruel and intrusive hostile environment. …

Syndicating Labour’s Money 2021

I wrote a shorter version of my article, Labour’s money 2021 for the Labour Briefing Co-Op, they posted it on their site yesterday. Bottom line, membership income down, donations not enough, and the first major deficit in decades. …

On the cost of living crisis

A short note on the cost of living crisis, on import prices of gas and food, why gas is crucial, how privatisation makes it worse, how brexit has impacted food production, interest rates and the public sector pay cap. For the full article, read more, ...

A short note on FX & UK Trade

Like many, I am considering the macro drivers of the cost of living crisis and I listened to the AEIP podcast with Gary Stevenson. He has an interesting view and argues that the QE funded furlough scheme was in fact a subsidy to the rich and that the fundamental imbalance in the country is the shift of wealth from poor to rich. It’s a version of the argument that the problem is insufficient demand being caused by the continued pressure on medium and low incomes.

He also argues that the massive QE efforts are an effective devaluation which given the relative stickiness of prices with wages being the slowest to change and everything that wages need to buy increasing will exacerbate the squeeze on spending. He also argues that given the choice between working and starving, people will work. The use of the word devaluation led me to look at the following charts

The pound has been falling against the dollar all year, this makes imports, particularly of Oil, but also of Gas and food more expensive.

Here we see the balance of trade figures, a more traditional cause of devaluations. With the exception of two months, the UK has been in deficit for the last five years. There are those who contest the the balance of trade causes currency price movements and Sterling in particular is impacted by speculative currency flows. The key drivers of speculation are expected rate of return, which for fixed income assets is driven by the bank rate, and animal spirits about which I think it best not to comment. …