The results of yesterday’s mammoth round of card votes show that there is probably an even split between right and left among CLP delegates (although not all hostile to Evans), but a clear majority for the right wing, as it was in previous conferences, in the affiliated trade unions.
Overall, the right wing have gained ground among CLP delegates, not least by undemocratically expelling known left CLP delegates before conference. But against this, they have lost ground in the trade unions and look like losing more ground in that important Labour base in the coming months and years.
In all, the following are the results of the card votes from yesterday, all figures rounded to the nearest 1%.
On the card vote that confirmed David Evans as general secretary, we reported yesterday that the NEC report was agreed by 60% to 40%. The breakdown of that vote was as follows: CLPs, 52% for and 48% against, trade unions 66% for and 34% against. It looks, therefore, like a bare majority of CLP delegates backed Evans, as well as (probably) three of the big four trade unions, with Unite, CWU, FBU and BFAWU voting against his endorsement.
Differences emerged between unions and CLPs
The results of the other card votes on constitutional amendments were as follows. The first three card votes, on establishment of National Equalities and National Student structures, and on ‘updating language’ (such as removing reference to MEPs), there was almost unanimity, all passing with at least 98% in favour. There were smaller majorities, but in both sections of conference, for Card Votes 5 (on ‘party democracy’) overall 59% for, Card Vote 6 (On party meetings): overall 59% for, and Card Vote 7 (on local government) overall 93% for.
But on other constitutional amendments clear differences emerged between the CLPs and the trade unions. The votes were as follows: Card Vote 4. (NEC proposal for new membership rules): CLPs 55% for, trade unions 58% for, so 57% for overall. Card Vote 10 (PLP report to conference): CLPs 61% against, trade unions 70% against, NOT carried, with 65% against. Card Vote 11 (annual conference): CLPs, 53% against, trade unions 59% against, NOT carried with 56% against overall.
Card Vote 12 was an interesting result, on the election of general secretary (and therefore an implied rebuke for the appointment of Evans): CLPs 51% for 49% against, trade unions, 6% for 94% against, therefore lost by an overall 71% against, due to the weight of the union vote.
Card Vote 13 was on STV voting with CLPs voting just over 50% for and the trade unions only 40% for, thereby losing with 55-45% overall. Card Vote 14 was on parliamentary candidate applications and CLPs voted 52% for, with trade unions only 35% fore, therefore defeating the resolution. Finally, card Vote 15 on snap parliamentary election candidate selections saw 62% of CLPs vote for it, with only, trade unions 44% of unions, delivering a small majority for, of 53% overall.
It was like the Pope speaking against Sin
Now to the politics of the days. Ed Miliband opened the first of today’s discussions, on green policies. It was like the Pope speaking against Sin – what was there to disagree with? Nothing he said was opposed by delegates, from the point of view of the hypocrisy of the Tories’ ‘green paint’ to the urgency of the climate crisis itself. But, as it is with all of Labour’s spokespersons on concrete issues, it was characterized by fine-sounding rhetoric (“we must not shirk the fight…we must be the party of green and red together”, etc, etc) and very little in the way of concrete policies.
He made a lot of very important points about the need for “investment” but made no distinction between private investment – which has utterly failed – and public corporations. Promising to invest £3bn to ‘green’ the steel industry, for example. Won’t that just mean that taxpayers are going to subsidise the con merchants who have taken over the British steel industry? What he should be arguing for is the public ownership of this vital industry and on that basis, and that basis alone, investing to green it.
‘Climate justice’ is another one of those fine-sounding phrases (which he linked, correctly, to ‘economic justice’) that offers generalities without any specifics. To make trade unions ‘strong’ in new, green industries, they should be unshackled from restrictive Tory anti-union laws. Otherwise, where’s the meat in the policy?
Although delegates spoke from the floor on green resolutions, the differences were relatively minor because the overwhelming feeling in the conference hall is that there is a climate crisis, although not a clear view on what specific policies need to be implemented to deal with it.
There were two composite motions on a Green New Deal, both of them with a lot of general statements and demands that Labour members would support, the first one (published in its entirety here) explicitly calling for “public ownership of energy, including energy companies, creating an integrated, democratic system”. This was passed, but the second, calling for publicly owned green investment banks, went to a card vote which was lost.
Pointed in the direction of public ownership
The two unions CWU and ASLEF sponsored a resolution on ‘Community Wealth Building’ which clearly pointed in the direction of public ownership, without being too specific, calling for “the insourcing of public and local council services as preferred providers,” and “more democratic ownership of local economies, including support for cooperatives and municipal enterprise.”
An important composite, in the name of Unite and the CWU called for the following:
Conference – commits to bring Royal Mail back into public ownership, reuniting it with the Post Office and creating a publicly owned Post Bank run through the post office network;
– commits to bring the broadband-relevant parts of BT into public ownership, with a jobs guarantee for all workers in existing broadband infrastructure and retail broadband work, so as to deliver free full-fibre broadband to all by 2030;
– believes that we must continue to build quality public services that are democratic and give workers and their communities a greater voice as well as involving trade unions in both their establishment and delivery.
Not extraordinary measures, one would have thought, and much in line with Labour’s manifesto of 2019, but the kind of policies that it seems our leader, Keir Starmer, would run a mile from.
In the afternoon, there was a very large composite on housing and a number of speakers from the floor on this issue. Virtually all the speakers from the rostrum in this section reflected – again – the very real problems facing working class people, whether it is the unaffordability of homes, high rents, homelessness or the quality of housing. There is virtually a unanimous feeling among delegates for an end to ‘right to buy’ and for a large-scale programme of social home building by a future Labour government.
“it’s about time we taxed the rich!”
One delegate, cheered back to her seat after speaking, was a single mother, facing a cut in Universal Credit and a possible eviction in the next few weeks, with no social housing in her area available. “It’s about time”, she said, to applause, “we made the rich pay. Tax the rich.”
Lots of good speakers from the rostrum talked about the Orwellian term ‘affordable’ (which means unaffordable), homelessness, hidden homelessness (overcrowding), safety (around a Grenfell emergency motion), evictions and rents. It is impossible in a brief report to reflect the anger and sometimes desperation expressed by so many delegates at the rostrum. Suffice to say, that once again, the living experiences and ambitious aspirations for real change blew like a hurricane through conference, as they have done in previous, ‘Corbynite’ conferences. The text of the composite agreed is published in full here.
Inevitably, the solutions presented from the rostrum and in resolutions have leant heavily to the left, towards the Corbyn manifestos and away from the Tory-lite strategies touted by the leadership as long as they have dealt with political issues. Indeed, the angrier delegates were and the more radical they sounded on housing, the louder the applause. That clear contradiction, between a leadership frantically putting on the ‘brakes’, and the desperate urgings of Labour’s rank and file, is something that will inevitably sharpen in the coming months and years.
There were four more constitutional amendments coming down from the NEC, in the afternoon, again with no possibility of CLPs seeing or discussing them in advance and little opportunity for delegates to digest them from the Conference Arrangements Committee Report number 2. One of them ran to fifteen pages of text by itself.
Getting Labour ‘election ready’ by constitutional change?
These amendments were on the EHRC report, Safeguarding and Disciplinary Procedures, Party Conference and Getting Labour Election Ready, again a total of 35 pages of the report. There is no reason whatsoever for these detailed amendments to be thrust on delegates with no prior notice and no reason why the detail could not have been presented to CLPs and affiliated organisations two months ago.
Not unsurprisingly, the constitutional amendment on the EHRC brought out a sharp division and not a little acrimony among delegates. It was a clear political gesture that both Keir Starmer and Angela Raynor were present on the platform for this section of conference, because he would have seen it and wanted it seen as a vote of confidence in him.
The first speaker was Ruth Smeeth, followed by Margaret Hodge and they and other delegates trotted out the line of a massive and wholesale Jew-baiting within the Party membership. They both spoke for the ‘Jewish Labour Movement’, an organisation that, although affiliated, refused to support Labour in the last election.
Some delegates referred to Jeremy Corbyn’s supposed ‘interference’ in the investigation of anti-Semitism, glossing over the fact (as did the EHRC) that his was an attempt to speed up processes that were being deliberately slowed down and sabotaged by anti-Corbyn officials in Labour headquarters.
Delegates, at the request of the chair, were for the most part polite, although there were a few heckles here and there. Those delegates on the left sat quietly while there were staged standing ovations (first three front rows, reserved for MPs) for Margaret Hodge and Ruth Smeeth and anyone else who denounced the ‘widespread’ anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. It was almost an intimidation of the left.
Shift in power away from elected bodies to the general secretary
From the floor, there were nine speakers in favour of the EHRC rule change, and only two against, and both of these noted, correctly, that although the rule changes had been in discussion for months, the pages of details had been sprung on delegates only this morning. The changes actually represent a huge shift in power from elected bodies like the NCC (National Constitutional Committee) to the general secretary. David Evans, in appointing the members of the ‘outside’ body to look at disciplinary issues, will effectively become judge, jury and executioner.
The other contentious rule changes revolved around the methods of electing a leader – raising the MPs’ nomination threshold from 10% to 20% and making it harder for CLPs to have ‘trigger ballots’ to de-select their Labour MP. The category of ‘registered supporters’, which was introduced by the right wing in the hope it would be less radical than party activists, was to be abolished in leadership elections.
There was a lot of debate on these issues and probably most delegates who spoke were against the changes. All of them went to a card vote, the results of which are officially announced tomorrow (Monday), but according to the rumour mill were passed. We will find out tomorrow how that divides up between CLP delegates and the trade unions.
Today was a very intense day’s debate and it shows up clear contradictions. Marxists often talk about contradictory developments within a single process, what in dialectics is referred to as the ‘interpenetration of opposites’. That has certainly been the case here.
On the one hand, the right wing have made considerable gains on the floor of the conference. In organisational and constitutional terms, the right has pushed the party backwards, towards more power for MPs, the leader and the general secretary. But on all political questions the conference is no less radical than it was two or three years ago. That contradiction will get sharper in the coming years as the unions move to the left and as their members aspirations collide with the Tory-lite instincts of the right wing.
