Our housing motion was debated and carried with a qualification. We called for the building of 100,000 council homes, ending the right to buy confirming current policy but recognising it’s stalled, reforming housing finance accounts, greening of the social estate, insourcing of jobs, ending no fault evictions which was a new policy for GMB. We also called on the GMB to mount a political campaign to achieve these goals. The motion was moved by another delegate and was carried with qualification, the text of the motion is overleaf ...<.p>
There now follows a series of blog articles based on my notes and activities at GMB Congress 22, they are tagged as such. I was a delegate from my Branch, and thus part of the London Region delegation. The first motion we had to move was M66 on the Union training programme.
Our key demand is that they unbundle the H&S reps from the workplace organiser training. The current training is 30 days on block release and without facility time an onourous commitment and while it can be spread over several years this relies on someone staying at the same place for long enough.
Our key insight is that we can get the Union in the door via H&S, it only takes two people, it takes 50% of the work force to win a recognition dispute.
We asked for a CEC i.e. national review of the training programme, but even this the CEC asked for refer and will probably dump this on the Regions which isn’t really what we wanted. I asked the Regional delegation to ask fora better recommendation, but they didn't want to.
In the middle of the week, one Tory MP wrote in a House of Commons magazine. He catalogued the decline in trade, GDP and inward investment. He does not mention the traffic queues in Kent or in European airports. On exports he said,
the fishers who can no longer sell their Scottish salmon, to the farmers undercut by unchecked imports, to Cheshire cheesemakers running into £180 health certificates, even to the City which can no longer sell financial services to Europe, sector after sector is being strangled by the red tape we were supposed to escape from.
Tobias Ellwood MP, Politics Home, The House
He concludes that,
In a nutshell, all these challenges would disappear if we dare to advance our Brexit model by re-joining the EU single market (the Norway model). …
Any model will have benefits and drawbacks. The single market means the free movement of goods, services, capital and people. It would see £7bn of paperwork and checks go, and boost our economy by restoring free trade to sectors demanding change.
Tobias Ellwood MP, Politics Home, The House
What’s fascinating and brave is that this is a Tory MP!. He makes the obvious point that it’s still outside the EU and needn’t be seen as abandoning Brexit, but many in the parliamentary Tory party disagree. It has attracted the usual idiocy from Lord Frost whose response in a non-linked three tweet thread 🤦 is best seen in this article at the London Economic. It’s as light weight as everything else he does.
He’s right we should re-join the single market, and I think that support for this is growing.
Some in Labour continue to fight over the history of Brexit; the so-called Lexiters seem keen to pin the Tories’ Hard Brexit on Sir Kier Starmer. This latest round was sparked by Eagleton’s “The Starmer Project” with replies by me, Andrew Fisher and now Michael Chessum.
Some are keen to smear Starmer as the architect of “Remainer Sabotage”. He was not! Firstly, the idea of Remainer sabotage is a fantasy and secondly, if such a person exists, it is not Starmer, although I am clear there are some senior Labour parliamentarians who used the issue of Brexit to undermine Corbyn. Fisher, who was there, argues that Corbyn’s shadow cabinet followed Conference 18 policy where Starmer delivered the Shadow Cabinet line from the composite meeting, much to the chagrin of many who wanted an explicit reference to “Remain” in the words of the motion.
The reality is that the saboteurs of Corbyn’s leadership over Brexit were the MPs that like their extra-parliamentary fan club wanted a hard Brexit on any terms, some because of ideological commitment some from careerist motives; they voted against each of the options in the 2nd round of meaningful votes, three of which would have passed if they’d votes yes, including an EEA membership. They wanted a Corbyn led Labour Government which negotiated to leave the EU and rhe single market. Sadly for them neither Corbyn nor the Labour Party wanted to leave on poor terms, which they will not admit, and that is all that was left after they sank the options offered in the meaningful votes.
The Lexiter conspiracists also ignore both the tradition and enduring presence of a right wing labour opposition to Europe, and their Tory and foreign allies, in the seventies Enoch Powell, and in the 21st century Nigel Farage & Vladimir Putin. This attempted distancing of their unpleasant allies and their racism is endemic in the political practice of Lexit.
The fact is, that the Lexiters particularly in Parliament, allied with the European Reform Group and the UKIP entryists and sabotaged the choice of anything between Remain and the Tories’ Hard Brexit; they legitimised the working class vote for Brexit, colluded with the argument that a metropolitan elite were trying to steal it from them rather than ask for confirmation that the Govt had got it right and gave them permission to vote for Johnson. It’s not Remainers who should be apologising. …
The Govt renewed its list of universities which act as gateways to the High Potential Individual Visa route; graduates from approved top universities can apply to enter the UK. The list is published on the Govt web site; there’s been much comment this time round that there are no African Universities on the list but then there are no Latin American Universities nor Asian Universities apart from the pacific rim. The Govt claim to have used two other lists to construct their list; I have examined the QS index, partly because it’s easy to find and partly because I have looked at it before albeit nearly 13 years ago.
What’s startling is the number of PacRim countries now in the top 50, in 2007, there were very few, in 2021, there are many more. This should not be a surprise as the purpose of the QS index was to allow the Chinese state to plan its university programmes to support their investment led growth plans. We should also note that the QS index is/was biased towards English speaking universities.
Top 60 Universities by Region according to QS
There are no Latin American Universities in the Top 50, nor any African. The only Asian universities in this list are on the Pacific Rim, so none from the Indian subcontinent. The top Indian university is the Bombay Institute of Technology (177) and the top African university is the University of Capetown (226). The European figures (15) include 8 from the UK, and two from France, Switzerland and the Netherlands and one from Germany; the last figure surprises me, I would have thought they’d have more, but it could be as a result of the index methodology, although Switzerland has two institutes in the top 50. China has more in the top 60, than the UK and the EU. The HMG list includes the Karolinska Institute of Sweden, which I cannot find on the QS Index, but it claims 7th. The HMG List includes two US universities not in the top 60, but they claim to have sourced their list from multiple sources.
I would need to think harder about the impact of this route to entry to the country; the focus on the top 60 is clearly discriminatory as is most of the UK’s immigration law. This has even been confirmed by a leaked Home Office report. I predict someone is going to get into a lot of trouble for letting those words stay in the report!
The big and most important conclusion from examining these lists is that China is catching up, it has nine universities in the top 57, of which four are in Hong Kong. We can also note that the EU’s footprint in the top 50 is far lower than it once was as it was overly reliant on the UK’s universities.
Here’s my spreadsheet which contains my versions of the two tables, and several pivot tables and charts. …
Another Rule change for Labour Conference; this moves the right of access to the membership list from Appendix 2, to Chapter 2. It clarifies that Women's branch secretaries and secretaries of young labour branches/sections are to be given access to their appropriate membership lists. The guidelines as written state these branch officials should have access to the membership list. These words make it clear that this should be so.
Written for a friend; and the rule text is now below/overleaf ...
In my post, Is there a Starmerproject I criticised both Oliver Eagleton, its author, and Richard Seymour, its reviewer, for their takes on the role of Starmer’s Brexit positioning as part of his planned route to the leadership. I quoted Andrew Fisher on his clarification that Labour’s 2017 manifesto was to support the referendum result, only if the terms were right.
Andrew Fisher, in an article on Labour Hub, lambasts Eagleton for trying to accuse John McDonnel & Dianne Abbot of betraying a 40 year friendship and suggesting that Corbyn was too weak to get the policy he wanted. Fisher shows that Corbyn supported Labour Conference policy; it just wasn’t what Lexiters thought it was, or wanted. It’s an important contribution from someone that was there, reminding some on the Left that the CLPs, the Unions, and the majority of Labour Voters wanted to remain and wanted a second referendum. It was those who put their sterile dogma and personal careers first and voted down the meaningful votes that really killed Corbyn’s leadership. Their alternative reality doesn’t exist where a harsher Brexit line would have won the 2019 election. Corbynism was broken by then.
Fisher in his article, “I was at the heart of Corbynism. Here’s why we lost”, looks at Corbynism, Brexit, the issue that broke it, and opportunities for progress. Fisher is clear that internal opposition and sabotage were also part of the story. He concluded that most importantly the Left needs to develop a practiced of respect for others on left; if it doesn’t it will fail. But at some time this horrendous factionalism will end as enough of Lebour’s leadership realise that “a bird needs two wings to fly”. …
The Economist reports that spot gas prices have fallen but that UK energy prices cannot because the energy companies have already agreed a price; this is known as a forward rate agreement.
Someone is making a shit load of money here because there is a secondary market consisting of options and CFDs. So either the Gas providers or the derivative market makers are making a lot of money beyond the excessive profits of the energy companies. The use of FRAs is, it would seem, is a poor decision. Maybe if OFGEM didn’t nod through the price increases requested by, the so-called energy companies, most are commercial billing entities, they would be more careful.
I recommend you look at the article as it has a chart, and references a further articles on the UK Energy Market and the broken gas market. …
Labour Hub have publicised the Left Slates for Labour’s internal elections, together with their recommended rule changes, available as word or .pdf. They include mine, the complete list is as follows, although some of the titles need to be changed as I think there is a 10 word limit. The deadline for CLPs to submit a rule change to Annual Labour Conference is 12 noon Friday 17th June.
The Labour Party should be able to decide which Labour MPs can seek re-selection – not the PLP
Calls for card votes from Annual Conference; delegates should not ignored
Members need a Party Ombudsperson
Ban lobbyists and property developers from being selected as local government or Parliamentary candidates
Selection of Westminster parliamentary candidates – longlisting should to return to CLPs
CLPs and affiliates should be allowed to submit a motion and a constitutional amendment to Party Conference
CLPs and affiliates should be allowed to submit motions on organisational issues to Party Conference
Popular rule change proposals should not have to wait three years to be discussed at Conference
Full involvement by party branches and branches of affiliated organisations in the selection of Westminster candidates
The NEC must decide on the powers to be granted to the General Secretary, and Conference take the final decision
Member’s Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights
Labour members should be required to be members of a trade union
Member’s rights to free speech should be restored
The NEC should stop publishing its proposed rule changes at the last minute – members need time to consider such proposals
I have drafted some rule changes for people to work with for #lab21, These include proposals to establish a duty of good faith on NEC decisions, restore the rights of free speech for members, the need for NEC rule changes to have 30 days notice and the right of delegates at conference to call for card votes. …
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