By Left Horizons reporters.
As an answer to all of those who think the Labour Party is ‘dead’, the Regional conference of the Labour Party in the Northern region last weekend passed a resolution – unanimously – in favour of free school meals for all school pupils.
The mover of the resolution emphasised the historical principles of the Labour Party and the NHS of the past and pointed out that “800,000 children are going hungry although they do not fall within the remit of free school meals”. Food-poverty, he explained, is a barrier to learning. “We know the system is broken”, he said, “and that needs to change”.
Referencing London, where a similar policiy is being implemented, the mover made a pointed reference to the various Labour mayoral candidates in the coming local elecitons in May: “I would like to see this commitment from our mayoral candidates”.
Another speaker in favour, Steve Fairfax, of the Socialist Health Assocation, referenced his own childhood and the benefits he received from a Labour welfare state. He had qualified, he said, for free school meals, Farley’s Rusks, orange juice, free school milk and (to laughter) Castor Oil, “all to raise healthy children”. In the 1950s, he pointed out, “even the Tories recognised the importance of this at the time”. Given the current rate of child poverty, Steve said, the current threshold for free school meal entitlement is “totally inadequate”.
“The Tories don’t give a toss about our people…”
The next speaker, Andy Walker from City of Durham CLP, bluntly reminded the conference that “the Tories don’t give a toss about our people or about child poverty. We need to get power to implement these policies…We have to give people a reason to go out and vote”. Andy referenced the National Education Union, which has done a lot of good campaigning around food poverty and he noted that although it wasn’t a Labour-affiliated union, he hoped that one day it would be.
In the end, the resolution was passed unanimously. Much of the credit for this victory should go to Northern England Labour Left (NELL), which has been actively organising the left for years and is a vibrant and well-supported network, with members in nearly all of the region’s Constituency Labour Parties.
The Labour Party bureaucracy and the right wing in this region are no better or worse than elsewhere; officials interpret the rules to suit the factional needs of the right wing, often by suspending individuals and parties and manoeuvring ‘unsuitable’ people out of positions.
Jamie Driscoll, the very popular mayor of North Tyne, for example, was manoeuvred off the short-list for new post of North East mayor, in his case by expulsion, because someone else was lined up for the position. Jamie has already given a solid commitment for free school meals, but it remains to be seen if his Labour opponent will do the same.
It may be true that some of those who voted for this motion may have done so out of embarassment – they may not have wanted to seen to oppose it. But even that is a symptom of the real feelings of the party and trade union rank and file and the pressure that such aspirations can bring to bear. No amount of bureaucratic and administrative blocking can wish away the demands of ordinary labour movement activists for genuine and meaningful change, and this vote is an indication of that.
It is an indicator or possible developments in the future and the possiblity of a much bigger left growing in the Northern Labour Party, if and when a Starmer government follows policies that restrict reforms to a bare minimum in the interests of fiscal propriety.
