What’ll be debated at #lab23

The two leading factions have announced their recommendations for how CLP delegates should vote in the #lab23 conference priorities ballot. Only 12 motion topics are debated, six of which are the result of a ballot of the CLP delegates.

The left are recommending that the following topics are voted on for debate, Housing, Schools, Reform of Universal Credit, Health funding and structure, Free school meals, and, Asylum and Immigration. Labour to win recommend , An NHS fit for the future, Ukraine, Energy, Violence against Women and Girls, Defence, Ethics and Integrity in politics. On their tweet, they say, “These topics do not clash with ones already chosen by unions and are topics that best display party unity without unfunded spending commitments.” So they propose to debate only free policy without obtaining a mandate from the party on the ‘golden rules’; I am willing to bet that the defence motions call for unfunded expenditure increases.

I say, paraphrasing a comrade to get it within Twitter’s character limit, ‘At #lab23, ask your CLP delegates to support “NHS services and funding” as one of their 6 priorities. The topic “an NHS fit for the future” is pro-market do *not* to choose that one. The motions have been split to try to ensure that we do not debate this vital issue i.e. that of public ownership and lobbying.”

The left topics raise important questions that the NPF report and the Leadership are either silent, weak or wrong on. On Universal Credit, the motions seek to establish policy that Labour will oppose the two child limit on benefits, and the NHS motion topic that the NHS is publicly owned and delivers adequate service levels. On Asylum and Immigration, there are some progressive motions including calls to repeal the Illegal Migration and the Nationality and Borders Bill and re-enter the EU’s freedom of movement for labour, ( although without mentioning the single market and its freedom for goods, services and capital?)

I believe the Unions/Affiliates will vote to prioritise the following topics, Challenges facing retail and the high street, Critical infrastructure, Industrial strategy education and skills, New Deal for working people, Social care workforce, and, Technology and AI in the workplace. Critical Infrastructure, Strategy and AI could be interesting.

The Labour movement for Europe have put out a call for the UK/EU relations to be debated.

I repeat that attempting to exclude contrarian ideas [ or on medium ] weakens the party and its offer. For the sake of the country, they’d better be right.

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I have amended my wiki article, on the Political Compass to make a slide show of the changing position of Labour over the last 15 years.