Letter from Bob Edwards, Harlow Labour member
Only 22 people attended my Constituency Labour Party last week. In the 1970s, we used to have a hundred or more, when Stan Newens was our Labour MP.
Even under Jeremy Corbyn we had about fifty or sixty at very lively meetings, and with a lot more younger people present. Of the 22 present last week, two were in their nineties, five in their eighties and at least four in their seventies – half the meeting! I also noted that I was the only council tenant present.
I put a motion as an emergency to the meeting, saying that we needed to move to the selection of our parliamentary candidate, but it was ruled out by the chair as “not being an emergency.” This is in spite of the fact that the Labour Party being put on a ‘war footing’ for an election. But I was flabbergasted when the same chair who would not allow my motion, said we all needed to be “ready for action”.
