As it has been on other days, today’s Labour conference saw the collision of two political strategies: Labour’s right-wing, forever cautious, timid and with an eye to their friends in business, applying the brakes on workers’ demands, and a strategy that seeks to answer the hard realities of life faced by working people. It is the latter that will come increasingly to assert itself through the unions particularly, as workers demand real change.
It was evident in all of today’s debates, on Education, Health and Social Care, Violence against Women, Black Lives Matter, Asylum policy and Immigration. Specifically, there was the issue of the national minimum wage, following the news yesterday afternoon of the resignation of Andy McDonald, Labour’s Shadow Employment Minister, and the last man standing from the old Corbyn Shadow Cabinet. In his resignation letter, he wrote, “Yesterday, your office instructed me to go into a meeting to argue against a National Minimum Wage of £15 an hour and against Statutory Sick Pay at the living wage. This is something I could not do.”
“After many months of pandemic”, he went on, “when we made commitments to stand by key workers, I cannot now look those same workers in the eye and tell them they are not worth a wage that is enough to live on, or that they don’t deserve security when they are ill.” Echoing the same comment of scores of delegates to conference, he also told Keir Starmer that “the pledges that you made to the membership are not being honoured.”
Proportional representation defeated by trade union vote
Before dealing with the business of the day, on Tuesday, we need to report on the card vote results from yesterday, already leaked (as ever) to the press before the delegates see them. One of the most controversial discussions, at least in terms of debate from the floor was on proportional representation and it went to a card vote.
It is clear that the overwhelming majority of CLPs favoured the motion favouring PR – 80% in fact – but with 95% of trade unions voting against, it fell with an overall vote of 58% against. The resolution deploring the formation of the AUKUS ‘security’ pact in the Pacific was also passed on a card vote, by 70% to 30%, with a bigger majority among the trade unions than among CLP delegates. This is despite the Shadow Defence minister welcoming the new Cold War-style pact last week.
The opening debate on Tuesday morning was around Education and related issues, with a resolution moved by Liverpool Walton CLP on Food Poverty. The text in full was as follows:
This Conference congratulates Liverpool City Council for unanimously passing a motion to become the UK’s first ‘Right to Food’ city.
Conference notes the crisis of food poverty borne out of the political choices and systemic failings created over the past four decades.
The Trussell Trust reports a soaring 81% increase in emergency food parcels from food banks in its network.
Conference notes the growing concern amongst our health and care professionals of the current situation and the exacerbation of poverty figures through the impact of the Covid19 pandemic and economic uncertainty.
The National Food Strategy is the first independent review of England’s entire food system for 75 years. Its purpose is to set out a vision for the kind of food system we should be building for the future, and a plan for how to achieve that vision.
The Right To Food campaign is arguing that the 11 million people in food poverty should be central to this strategy.
Enshrining the ‘Right To Food’ into law would clarify Government obligations on food poverty and would introduce legal avenues to hold Government bodies accountable for violations.
This Conference believes that access to food should be a legal right in the UK, and that this Government should be legally responsible for ensuring its citizens do not go hungry.
We call on the Labour Party to embed a Right to Food Policy in its next general election manifesto.
Food bank Britain denounced by delegates.
It can be said of this discussion – exactly as it was in the Corbyn years – that the rostrum reflected the authentic voice of the working class, demanding answers and policies to meet the very real problems faced by working class people on a daily basis. Any readers of Left Horizons articles can easily imagine the angry tone of many delegates talking about food banks and the privatisation of the education system through academisation. Tory Britain is ‘Food bank Britain’ (“We have more food banks in this country than branches of MacDonalds”) and the delegates were demanding concrete answers to this and other important problems.
Wes Streeting, Shadow Schools Minister, pledged a Labour government in his reply, to end child poverty. It was an easy promise to make, and of course popular, but some delegates did wonder about the logic of his active three-year opposition to a Corbyn leadership that promised the same thing.
Streeting has launched a ‘ten for ten’ campaign, listing ten opportunities that should be available to all children by the age of ten years, not a bad idea in itself. But the Labour leadership seem fixed on that number and, it should be noted, Keir Starmer’s original ‘ten pledges’ haven’t had a very long shelf-life. If Streeting’s ‘ten for ten’ is to have any real meaning, we will need a Labour government a lot bolder and more radical than the one Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer seem to be offering.
Radical composite on the NHS far to the left of the leadership
Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Health Minister, opened the conference session on the NHS and he was another one who played to the gallery. It was easy to get cheers and applause by thanking NHS and care workers but his pledge for decent pay failed to mention a figure…which will be duly noted by trade union members.
This was the man, in case we forget, who in a (somehow) recorded telephone conversation with a Tory friend, ‘accidentally’ let slip his gloomy prognosis about Labour’s chance of winning a general election under Corbyn. Then, strangely, it was released to the media. Mmm. Do we really believe that it was ‘accidental’? Or was it a part of a deliberate sabotage effort?
Ashworth’s speech was like Rachel Reeves’ yesterday. Every delegate, without exception, applauded his direct attacks on the Tories’ incompetence, the corruption, the waiting lists, the lack of PPE in the pandemic, the low pay, the understaffing, reduced life expectancy, and many other things. But when it came to policies, his tone was far less radical than the composite resolution on the NHS, which we have published in full here and which was later passed.
What was clear from the applause and cheers of delegates is that there is an overwhelming consensus for an end to the ongoing privatisation and looting of the NHS and for the entire service to be restored being fully-publicly owned. The measures of the Tories are pushing the NHS further towards privatisation and Labour needs to pull it back. “No more money for profiteers” and a “fully nationalised health service” were typical comments among many.
It was a pity that Jonathan Ashworth didn’t even have the good grace to stay on the platform to listen to some of these comments. Living in a parallel universe somewhere, he is clearly trying to avoid the cold wind of real life. But in the longer term, the policies of the Party will come to revolve around the real experiences and needs of the NHS workers who spoke from the rostrum, and not around Ashworth’s sensibilities.
Overwhelming support for £15 an hour in social care workers
In the same section, it was notable that two unions with right wing leaders, GMB and UNISON, jointly sponsored a resolution on Social Care containing a lot of very valuable demands leading to the service and the workers who keep it running. One key demand in the resolution was to “ensure care workers are paid at least in line with average wages (now £15 an hour), with clear routes for training and progression“.
There is not a worker shortage, the GMB delegate said, “There is a wage shortage”. She called on the Labour Party to support the GMB’s campaign for £15 an hour. It was overwhelmingly supported in conference, in contrast to the timid approach of the Labour leadership, unwilling to commit to £15 an hour..
In this section also, there was a composite on mental health at work, moved by USDAW. This resolution asked for the Labour Party to be committed to “Strengthening the Equality Act and improving enforcement mechanisms paying particular attention to the right to reasonable adjustments…Introducing mandatory disability pay gap reporting…and…Repealing anti-trade union laws and strengthening collective bargaining rights”.
In the section on LGBT+ rights, a resolution was moved by Pendle CLP, the mover complaining (to shouts of “shame!”) about transphobic comments even in and around the conference. Jamie Penquite-Green, from Penrith and the Borders CLP, made an excellent contribution seconding the motion.
Most passed overwhelmingly, if not unanimously
All of the resolutions on the NHS, mental health, social care and LGBT+ rights were passed on a show of hands, most of them overwhelmingly, if not unanimously. We will need to publish some of these on the Left Horizons website, not because they’re all politically perfect, because they’re not, but because they show the breadth of the aspirations and demands being brought forward by ordinary Labour and trade union members.
It is an indication of the radical tone of conference in this section that every single reference back of the National Policy Forum report was passed on a show of hands. This procedure, which in effect means that the NPF report is offering policy that is inadequate, is usually voted down, because the delegates prefer to focus on the resolutions, but in this session, every reference back was passed, showing the scale of disgruntlement at the work of the National Policy Forum.
In the afternoon, the session on Justice was begun by Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, whose under-whelming speech could be summed up as ‘more community police’ and ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’: things we’ve all heard before.
But there were important resolutions and speakers from the floor on the issues of refugees, Black Lives Matter and on violence against women and girls. The composite on refugees included these comments:
“Conference calls on the Party and the Leadership to strongly oppose the Nationality and Borders Bill; consistently promote solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers and defend their rights set in international law; challenge the racist representation of refugees and asylum seekers as criminals and scroungers; recognise and disseminate knowledge of the contribution that refugees and migrant workers make to our society and economy; call for the implementation of UNHCR’s recommendations on asylum reform in the UK as a positive alternative to the Nationality and Borders Bill”.
Resolution on Black Lives Matter
The resolution on Black Lives Matter was relatively brief, reading as follows: “That this Conference reaffirms its support for Black Lives Matters; recognises that much more needs to be done on the race issues calls on the Labour Party to set out a clear programme at a local and National level that will transform the equality agenda to improve the lives and aspirations of the black community”. What got a cheer, however, was the mover asking for an update on the Forde Inquiry that ought to have dealt with, but seems to have sat on, the misogynistic and racist comments by Labour staffers during the 2017 general election.
Within the same session there were some excellent contributions on violence against women, including from some who had suffered from it. The main composite on this included these introductory comments: “Conference notes the continued harassment and misogynist bullying of women in public life, contributing to discouraging women from standing for councillor positions or other elected representative roles.
“Conference further notes that in the TUC report ‘It’s just a bit of banter’, on sexual harassment in the workplace, reported the vast majority of perpetrators were men. Conference condemns increasing domestic abuse and violence against women and girls, and the rise in harassment and misogynist abuse online during the pandemic”. Many speakers commented on the very poor rate of rape convictions and the tendency for rapes and sexual assaults not to be even reported, because there is a perception among victims, that the issue is not taken seriously.
Demonstrated a class approach to the issues
Many delegates spoke in this section, from the CLPs and the trade unions, again bringing their own experiences to bear in the fight against racism and misogyny and expressing their support and sympathy for refugees. Almost without exception, they also demonstrated a distinct class approach to the issues they addressed. Although it was a relatively long session, it suffered somewhat from the fact that several very important issues were rolled up in one session, when ideally it might have been better to discuss them each separately and with adequate time.
When it came to the votes, all of the composites and resolutions put forward were again agreed overwhelmingly on a show of hands. Once again, we will have to look at publishing some of these resolutions on the Left Horizons website.
These resolutions and their content are important political ‘weapons’ in the hands of socialists arguing their corner in Labour Party and trade union meetings, because it is legitimate to say that having been passed, they represent Labour policy. It may be the policy of the Labour Party leadership, for example, to sit on the fence over a £15 an hour National Minimum Wage, but after today it most certainly is Labour Party policy to support it.
