Category Archives: Conference 2017

Anti-Semitism, Conference 2017

NEC compromise on anti-Semitism is a poisoned fudge

Mike Macnair explains why NEC concessions to the JLM will only serve to whet the right’s appetite

(this article first appeared in the Weekly Worker)

The front page headline in the Daily Mail of September 26 was “Labour is the real nasty party”. One might imagine that the story was about Labour advocating stamping on some section of the downtrodden poor. But no. Surprise, surprise – Labour is “the nasty party” because it refuses to suppress anti-Zionist speech, and, indeed, (shock, horror!) delegates have even applauded such speech. The Mail calls this an “outbreak of intimidation and anti-Semitism at its annual conference”.

The Daily Telegraph had the same story, with a bit more elaboration, under the headline, ‘Labour activists compare Israel to Nazi Germany, as Jeremy Corbyn accused of behaving like “ostrich” over anti-Semitism’. The trigger for the story was the Monday fringe meeting called by Free Speech on Israel.

Canned denunciations were provided to the Mail by former Tory minister Andrew Percy and by Labour MPs John Cryer (chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party), Wes Streeting, and John Mann. In addition, the Mail linked the issue to the (actually old) story of trolls’ threats to Laura Kuenssberg in relation to BBC bias in the run-up to the general election, with quotes on this issue provided by MPs Harriet Harman and Jess Phillips.

The Mail tells us that:

A Labour spokesman last night said Mr Corbyn was now tightening up the rules on those who make anti-Semitic comments. He said the party “condemns anti-Semitism in the strongest possible terms” and “will not tolerate holocaust denial”.

The reference is to a rule change agreed to go to conference by the national executive committee, which will change the present rules to allow certain sorts of ‘expression of opinion’ to be the basis of expulsions.

In the Telegraph, the Mail’s ‘amalgam’ (smear by combining unrelated issues) with trolls threatening Kuenssberg is not repeated. But, as well as very similar quotes to those in the Mail from Wes Streeting, John Cryer and John Mann, denunciations in the Telegraph are also provided by shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth MP, Jeremy Newmark of Poale Zion (which misappropriated the name ‘Jewish Labour Movement’ in 2004) and Jennifer Gerber of Labour Friends of Israel.

By September 27 the story had spread into other news outlets, notably The Times,which spread a headline on the point across the two pages of its Labour conference coverage and added a leader demanding that “Jeremy Corbyn must at last declare himself on the side of Israel and British Jews” – a very revealing word order: this campaign is about demanding support for Israel – and for “British Jews” only insofar as they support Israel. In the same day’s coverage in the Times and elsewhere Labour Party Marxists is targeted for publishing articles by Jewish anti-Zionists which called into question the factual basis of the complaints against Ken Livingstone.

In other words, the ‘weaponisation’ by the rightwing press and the Labour right of the false and defamatory claim that anti-Zionism amounts to anti-Semitism is persisting in full force. It persists in spite of the ‘unity’ talk of all sides in Labour. And it does so in spite of the concessions made to the PZ-JLM claims by Labour’s national executive committee, which have not defanged the argument. If anything, the NEC’s fudge on the issue is poisoned: it is at risk of conceding the substance of the PZ-JLM claims under cover of superficially neutral language.

To understand why this is so involves understanding both the traps – Scylla and Charybdis – posed by the PZ-JLM’s and the NEC’s (different) proposed rule changes: the problem of the tension of freedom of speech and freedom of association and disassociation. And it involves understanding how these specifically play out in the character of the Labour Party – which is not a ‘normal’ political party, but one which is founded on two contradictory claims, driving a permanent tendency to witch-hunting. The ‘anti-Semitism scandal’ is merely the most recent iteration of ‘bans and proscriptions’ in the interest of the British state security apparat.

Fudge

The issue is about changing the rules – under PZ-JLM’s proposal, in order to get rid of Livingstone and to proscribe anti-Zionist speech. The current relevant rule is in Labour Party rulebook 2016, chapter 2 (‘Membership rules’), clause I, rule 8. It reads:

No member of the party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the party. Any dispute as to whether a member is in breach of the provisions of this subclause shall be determined by the NCC [national constitutional committee] in accordance with chapter 1, clause IX above and the disciplinary rules and guidelines in chapter 6 below. Where appropriate the NCC shall have regard to involvement in financial support for the organisation and/or the activities of any organisation declared ineligible for affiliation to the party under chapter 1.II.5 or 3.C above; or to the candidature of the members in opposition to an officially endorsed Labour Party candidate or the support for such candidature. The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions (emphasis added).

The rule is primarily a part of the system of bans and proscriptions, concerned with excluding supposed Trotskyist infiltrators (without explicitly using the T word). The final sentence, which I have italicised, is the Labour bureaucrats’ concession to the party left’s fear that people might be expelled for merely holding Trot-like views.

The practical significance of this final sentence is that if the party had actually expelled Ken Livingstone on the basis of his comments about Hitler and Zionism, as various pro-Zionist politicians and journalists demanded, it is likely that a court would find that the sentence barred an expulsion.

PZ-JLM proposed:

Add an additional sentence after the first sentence:“A member of the party who uses anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions in public, private, online or offline, as determined by the NEC, shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the party.”

Add at the end of the final sentence after “opinions”:

“… except in instances involving anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or racism”.

Insert new paragraph E:

“Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options …

The NEC’s version of the rule change is (so far as relevant) to insert:

The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as conduct prejudicial to the party. These shall include but not be limited to incidents motivated by racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic, as determined by the NEC, wherever it occurs, as conduct prejudicial to the party.

And to add at the end:

… except in any instance inconsistent with the party’s aims and values, agreed codes of conduct, or involving prejudice towards any protected characteristic.

As Bob Pitt has pointed out,1)https://medium.com/@pitt_bob/did-the-jewish-labour-movement-get-its-way-over-labour-party-rule-changes-df62f8b5a1af. The quotations from the PZ-JLM proposal are taken from the JLM online source comrade Pitt cites there; the NEC proposal from Pitt. it is clear that PZ-JLM has not got all it wants. What it has got, however, is a very considerable watering-down of the commitment in the existing party rules not to expel people on the basis of “the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions”. It is this that makes the NEC proposal a fudge.

Free speech

Marxists stand for very broad freedom of speech and communication (I will use ‘speech’ as a shorthand for the broader issue).2) See M Macnair, ‘Marxism and freedom of communication’ Critique Vol 37, pp565-77 (2009). The fundamental underlying reason is that the collective appropriation of the means of production – the cooperative commonwealth – requires democratic decision-making. If access to information is restricted, the controllers of the access have obtained private property in that information. Controls on freedom of speech restrict potential hearers’ access to information in the hands of potential speakers, for the benefit of the gatekeepers.

Moreover, the absence of freedom of communication tends to produce ‘planning irrationalities’ of the sort found in the old Soviet-style regimes: planners are led to take decisions in the dark as to actual needs; false pretences become the norm, and ‘They pretend to pay us; we pretend to work’.

This argument may appear to apply only to information which is immediately relevant to material production. But this is untrue. It applies with equal force to such intangibles as education, or to artistic production (remember the artificial resource preference given to ‘socialist realism’). Hence, it is not possible to draw a clear line, which would say ‘We need freedom of production-related speech, but not of other speech’.

Below this level of generality, the working class immediately needs freedom of speech and communication in order to organise itself to take decisions for collective action – strikes, and so on, but equally electoral campaigns – democratically. It needs to organise itself democratically because undemocratic decision-making tends to demobilise and atomise the participants.

There are limits, as liberal writers on the issue recognise.3)They often overstate the point. Notoriously, freedom of speech does not authorise or protect the prankster who falsely shouts ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theatre, causing a panic. False statements made in circumstances where it is not easy for the recipient to check and with a view to making a gain or avoiding a loss – frauds ­- are more or less universally penalised in legal systems.4)An early example is H Badamchi, ‘The meaning of “theft” in ancient near eastern law’ Folia Orientalia Vol 53, pp369-86 (2016). ‘I’m going to kill you’, said in a realistically threatening manner face to face, justifies the hearer in using deadly force in self-defence.

Beyond such cases, speech may be hurtful (for example, in the context of rows in sexual or family relationships); or defamatory, as a smear tactic; or (particularly when used by a superior to a subordinate, or a majority member to a minority member or dissident) belittling as a form of bullying. And so on.

In these areas Marxists are generally opposed to state/legal regulation of speech; but support the right to challenge speech. The reason is not that we endorse the use of speech to hurt people, defame them or belittle them, and so on. It is that the nature of the state is such that it can be routinely expected to abuse speech control powers given to it. A few examples: section 5 of the Public Order Act 1936, supposedly directed against Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, was from the outset used mainly against leftwing protestors, trade union pickets, and so on. The first person convicted of incitement to racial hatred was a black power activist. A Canadian reform of pornography law along feminist lines produced as the first item prosecuted under the new law a lesbian magazine. These are merely examples of normal state behaviour.

The theoretical point of libel law is to repress the sort of campaign of defamation which is being run by LFI and PZ-JLM and their MP supporters and media friends. But it would be useless to sue. This is, first, because recent British monarchs have franchised to the bar and solicitors’ profession the sale of justice contrary to Magna Carta article 29, through the ‘free market in legal services’, under which deep pockets routinely win lawsuits – and especially so in defamation cases. It is, second, because this campaign of defamation is in fact being conducted in the interest of the British state and its foreign policy, so that judicial bias in favour of the libellers is to be expected.

The case of a workers’ state would not be different. Empirically, witness, in practice, all the Stalinist regimes, including the most ‘liberal’ ones. Witness also the use of speech controls by the trade union bureaucracy – as, for example, in the ‘Unison monkey trial’. Theoretically, the permanent bureaucratic apparatus of a trade union, or of a workers’ state, is a form required by the limits of the transition to communism: a persistence of ‘bourgeois right’; and the individual state or bureaucratic officials have particular interests in their individual posts and their bureaucratic ‘turf’ – as Marx pointed out in his Critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right. These interests motivate the abuse of speech controls, which is found empirically.

From this point of view, the statement that “The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions” is a desirable rule, and diluting it is straightforwardly a bad idea. But matters are not quite so simple.

Freedom of association

The Labour Party is not a state. It is, in a certain aspect, an agency of the United Kingdom state – a point to which we will return later. But basically it is a political party: a voluntary association whose aim is to pursue certain political aims, mainly through persuading other people to support these aims (for instance, by electing Labour representatives into office).

This does not make free speech irrelevant to the Labour Party (or any other political party). But it does mean that it has certain limits. If the Labour Party routinely tolerated prominent figures who called for people to vote Tory – or, for that matter, for the party to adopt Tory policies – it would render itself completely nugatory.

But, of course, it does. We argued in this paper in 2010 for the expulsion of the Labour figures who took jobs from the Con-Dem coalition government: Frank Field, John Hutton and Alan Milburn.5)‘Expel the collaborators’ Weekly Worker August 25 2010. No wider forces took up this call.

The Blairites were, in essence, advocates of Labour adopting a great deal of Tory policy. During their ascendancy the party really was tending towards becoming a political zero as a result, meaning merely an office-gaining machine for careerists; but in doing so it actually paved the way for actual electoral failure, as happened in Scotland in 2015. If the Blairites had retained control, Theresa May might have succeeded in her project in the June election of winning the Labour Brexiteer votes and thus completing the job of smashing Labour started in Scotland.

It is thus perfectly legitimate to say that people who want to campaign for conservatism should openly and honestly join the Conservative Party, rather than covertly do so in the Labour Party. And in that sense the ‘absolute’ guarantee of freedom of “expression of beliefs and opinions” in the party rules as they stand is inappropriate. If the left defends this absolute guarantee unequivocally, it will actually be preparing the ground for pro-Tory advocates in the future.

There is also an issue which is closer to the immediate one. Feminism, anti-racism and various other ‘special oppression’ issues have since the 1990s been ‘weaponised’ in the interests of US foreign policy. That does not mean, however, that the left should abandon opposition to racism, patriarchy, and so on. In the words of the 1880 Programme of the Parti Ouvrier, “The emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race” – and the same goes for all the other distinctions which have been made the ground of oppression.

Hence, conducting a racist agitation, for example, is agitating against Labour’s – or Marxist – aims and values. It again poses the point that the honest racist should go and join an openly racist party rather than attaching themselves to the left.6)I do not mean by this to deny the undoubted history of racist commitments of the labour movement. An example from the 1906 Labour manifesto: “Chinese Labour is defended because it enriches the mine owners” (http://labourmanifesto.com/1906/1906-labour-manifesto.shtml). This does not alter the point that Marxism has a historical commitment against racism and sexism.

Getting closer still. The Zionists have argued that anti-Zionism – opposition to the project of creating a state for all the world’s Jews in the Levant – in itself amounts to anti-Semitism. This is straightforwardly false. Nonetheless, there is such a thing as an anti-Semitic anti-Zionism. It is found where, instead of blaming the political Zionist movement, and the policies of the great powers, for the creation of the state of Israel and its ongoing colonial oppression and dispossession of the local inhabitants, an attempt is made to find some way of blaming these events on the Jews as such, or on specifically ‘Jewish’ capital.

This newspaper has encountered the phenomenon directly in the fairly recent past. In September 2014 we reported the expulsion of Ian Donovan from the Communist Platform of Left Unity, precisely because the overwhelming majority of members wanted Communist Platform to dissociate itself publicly from Donovan’s arguments that the United States backs the state of Israel because of the large number and influence of specifically Jewish capitalists in the US.7)‘No place for anti-Semitism’ Weekly Worker September 18 2014.

Suppose, then, that the Labour Party was a regular political party, which had unambiguous general anti-racist commitments in its platform. We would then support in principle the use of party disciplinary procedures to dissociate the party from people who argued that “Jews” as such or “Jewish capital” as such are responsible for the state of Israel and/or its conduct.

At present, however, to take this approach would involve obvious double standards. The reason is that the state of Israel is explicitly and by its constitution a racialist state: a state for its Jewish citizens, not one for all its citizens, and still less one for all its subjects, which include the Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza, who are subject to Israeli military occupation and expropriations to facilitate colonisation (West Bank) and siege warfare (Gaza).

Hence PZ-JLM and LFI, by promoting Labour support for Israel without explicitly condemning the racialist provisions in Israel’s constitution and the racialist conduct of the Israeli state in (at least) the West Bank, are actively promoting racism. Yet the party takes no action against this activity. Indeed, any suggestion that PZ-JLM should be disaffiliated is denounced as … anti-Semitism, and therefore racism.

Under these circumstances, even to proceed to take disciplinary measures against people who argued that “Jews” as such or “Jewish capital” as such are responsible for the state of Israel, while leaving the advocates of support for Israel in its present racist form untouched, would be double standards.

This, of course, is not what the Labour right’s MPs, PZ-JLM, LFI and the rightwing media are demanding. They are claiming that not supporting Israel is anti-Semitism and racism. This is not merely double standards, but a big lie: “Leon Trotsky was a fascist, and I know it for a fact: first I said it, then I read it, in the Hitler-Stalin pact.”

What drives this big lie machine? It might be imagined (and, it seems, probably is imagined among the Labour left) that it is merely a matter of securing a Conservative victory at the next general election by smearing Labour. An assumption of this sort is likely to have led to the idea of defanging the smear campaign by concessions to it, which explains the NEC decision on the rule change proposal and the responses of Labour officials to the media on the issue. If so, the concessions would lead to inability to exploit the issue, leading in turn to it fading out of public attention.

But this is not what has happened. And in reality, the agenda is something different. It is about who controls the Labour Party, given the risk that Labour might form a government.

Labour

The Labour Party is not (to quote my formulation above) “a regular political party, which has unambiguous general anti-racist commitments in its platform”. Rather, it is a party founded on a contradiction.

On the one hand, Labour claims, both by its name and by its affiliate structure, to be not a party founded on a specific political platform, but rather the united representative of the working class as a whole. In this character, it blocks the legitimacy of the existence of alternative parties within the movement. (I emphasise ‘legitimacy’ because it is the first-past-the-post electoral system which is the primary obstacle to the electoral representation of alternative parties.)

On the other hand, in contradiction with this claim, Labour is characterised by commitments, not explicit in its constitution, to loyalty to the British constitution and to the British national interest. Though these are not explicit political commitments in the party’s constitution, they extend way to the left of the centre ground, and can be found even among advocates of constitutional reform: Michael Foot at his most leftwing was still a loyalist to the constitution; Tony Benn advocated radical constitutional change, but still within a British framework (the restoration, in a sense, of the Commonwealth of 1651-54), and Brexiteering.

None of this is any novelty in Labour. It was already present before World War I in the PLP’s tailing the Liberals on international politics and in Labour’s support for the war.

Its primary institutional expression is, precisely, the regime of bans and proscriptions. Labour simultaneously claims by its name and its affiliate structure to represent the working class as a whole – but by the bans and proscriptions, it claims to exclude the representation of the part of the working class which is not loyal to the constitution and to the British ‘national interest’ in foreign affairs.

If Labour had open and transparent programmatic commitments to British nationalism and loyalism, it would be hard for it to claim that it represents the working class as a whole, and thus block the legitimacy of any alternative workers’ party, hold on to the system of trade union affiliation, and so on. These commitments must thus take indirect forms; and those forms are bans and proscriptions and witch-hunting, together with the protected privileges of the PLP.

In this aspect, the Labour Party serves as an indirect agency or arm of the British state: it propagates loyalty to the constitution and to the national interest among the working class, and Labour MPs can in principle be trusted to carry out ministerial roles in the interests of the state (and thus, indirectly, of capitals operating on British territory).

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory in two leadership elections, and the Tories’ failure to inflict a crushing defeat on Labour in June 2017, pose a particular problem for this regime. They do so because since 1940 the fundamental orientation of British state policy has been the acceptance of subordinate-ally status in relation to the USA in exchange for protection.

It was not peculiar to Blair to get involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: the Wilson government conducted various counterinsurgency operations, in particular in Yemen and Oman, and backed Vietnam (though it did not actually send in troops); the Attlee government took Britain into the Korean war.8)Before 1940, of course, it was a matter of maintaining British imperial interests: for example, the 1924 MacDonald Labour government continued support for ‘air control’ bombing in Iraq and elsewhere – see JS Corum, ‘The myth of air control: reassessing the history’ Aerospace Power Journalwinter 2000, pp61-77.

There is a particular need to hem in Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott (and their supporters) on this issue because the Iraq war lacked united backing from the British state core, and consequently gave rise to an enormous, mass anti-war movement, with which Corbyn in particular was closely associated. The anti-war movement itself as an activist movement ebbed away; but it left behind a legacy of scepticism on the left towards US policy in the Middle East and the US’s Israeli sidekick. The Gaza war of 2008-09 (‘Operation Cast Lead’) attracted much more open media and activist hostility than had been the case with previous Israeli operations.

The British state needs to restore the trustworthiness of a potential Labour government in the eyes of the USA. To do that means that Labour has to give explicit commitments to support US policy in the Middle East. This was the point of Cameron’s demands for support for bombing the Syrian state, and then for bombing the Syrian Islamist opposition, and the ridiculous momentary glorification of Hilary Benn in December 2015.

But this direct demand for support has been rather unsuccessful. After all, US policy in the Middle East does not look terribly successful. Almost worse is Cameron’s ostensible lead role, with Labour backing, in causing state failure and humanitarian disaster in Libya in the name of ‘humanitarian intervention’.

It is in this context that the big lie that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism has been promoted and continues to be promoted. It takes hold of a vulnerability of the broad left – its intersectionality, its inability to confront identity-oppression claims. By doing so it weaponises the idea of anti-racism.

The ‘Labour’s anti-Semitism problem’ big lie will thus persist until the Labour leadership is prepared to give Israel the blank cheque which will – when the time comes – ‘justify’ bombing Iran and/or again invading Lebanon and/or further ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. It is a merely incidental advantage that it allows further and better ‘compliance unit’ purges of Labour lefts.

Poison

It is in this context that the NEC’s amendment is not merely a fudge, but a poisoned fudge. The idea of the amendment is to make a more general and more limited limitation on free speech than the PZ-JLM proposal. The revised wording will read:

The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions except in any instance inconsistent with the party’s aims and values, agreed codes of conduct, or involving prejudice towards any protected characteristic.

The idea of a “protected characteristic” is taken from the Equality Act 2010, sections 4-12, listing a range of characteristics – race, age, gender, sexual orientation, religious or philosophical beliefs, etc. Section 13 then prohibits direct discrimination on the ground of the protected characteristics and section 19 indirect discrimination.9)In between sections 13 and 19 is a quantity of complexity posed by the fact that age, sex and disability actually pose different discrimination problems to race and nationality; but that is a problem with the design of the 2010 act, not with the Labour Party’s new rule.

In this statutory context the terminology makes a degree of sense, and so does the term, ‘prejudice’. In origin, ‘prejudice’ refers to the judge (or equivalent) who has made his mind up before hearing the evidence and argument (for whatever reason). In the context of direct discrimination in employment, etc, it also makes sense: the point is that the employer has made his mind up not to hire black people (or whatever) without waiting for the CV or interview.

In the context of penalising the “mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions”, however, “prejudice” is perfectly meaningless. There is no concrete decision, nor any concrete arguments of evidence, in relation to which there is a pre-judgement.

It can only then be taken to mean something in the nature of “negative attitude to” – so that, for example, radical feminists are ‘prejudiced’ towards trans women, no matter how much argument they offer; or feminists generally are ‘prejudiced’ against Catholic right-to-lifers on the basis of their religious views; or leftwingers are ‘prejudiced’ against the holders of Conservative philosophical beliefs; or anti-Zionists are ‘prejudiced’ against Jews because, it is alleged, all Jews are Zionists; or because Jews are, it is claimed, a nation and all nations have the right to self-determination (except ones targeted as ‘rogue states’ by the USA).

All of these arguments are versions of the same method – of converting disagreement into a supposed violation of someone’s rights. But they all follow logically from the acceptance of the “prejudice” formula, made into an empty ‘boo word’ by taking it out of its proper contexts of judicial misconduct and direct discrimination.

The underlying dynamics of the Labour Party in the present period mean that partial concessions to the smear-mongers will not defang the issue, but they will just come back for more. And the concessions are then a means in which they are helped to come back for more. The fudge is poisoned.

Notes

1. https://medium.com/@pitt_bob/did-the-jewish-labour-movement-get-its-way-over-labour-party-rule-changes-df62f8b5a1af. The quotations from the PZ-JLM proposal are taken from the JLM online source comrade Pitt cites there; the NEC proposal from Pitt.

2. See M Macnair, ‘Marxism and freedom of communication’ Critique Vol 37, pp565-77 (2009).

3. They often overstate the point.

4. An early example is H Badamchi, ‘The meaning of “theft” in ancient near eastern law’ Folia Orientalia Vol 53, pp369-86 (2016).

5. ‘Expel the collaborators’ Weekly Worker August 25 2010.

6. I do not mean by this to deny the undoubted history of racist commitments of the labour movement. An example from the 1906 Labour manifesto: “Chinese Labour is defended because it enriches the mine owners” (http://labourmanifesto.com/1906/1906-labour-manifesto.shtml). This does not alter the point that Marxism has a historical commitment against racism and sexism.

7. ‘No place for anti-Semitism’ Weekly Worker September 18 2014.

8. Before 1940, of course, it was a matter of maintaining British imperial interests: for example, the 1924 MacDonald Labour government continued support for ‘air control’ bombing in Iraq and elsewhere – see JS Corum, ‘The myth of air control: reassessing the history’ Aerospace Power Journalwinter 2000, pp61-77.

9. In between sections 13 and 19 is a quantity of complexity posed by the fact that age, sex and disability actually pose different discrimination problems to race and nationality; but that is a problem with the design of the 2010 act, not with the Labour Party’s new rule.

References

References
↑1 https://medium.com/@pitt_bob/did-the-jewish-labour-movement-get-its-way-over-labour-party-rule-changes-df62f8b5a1af. The quotations from the PZ-JLM proposal are taken from the JLM online source comrade Pitt cites there; the NEC proposal from Pitt.
↑2 See M Macnair, ‘Marxism and freedom of communication’ Critique Vol 37, pp565-77 (2009).
↑3 They often overstate the point.
↑4 An early example is H Badamchi, ‘The meaning of “theft” in ancient near eastern law’ Folia Orientalia Vol 53, pp369-86 (2016).
↑5 ‘Expel the collaborators’ Weekly Worker August 25 2010.
↑6 I do not mean by this to deny the undoubted history of racist commitments of the labour movement. An example from the 1906 Labour manifesto: “Chinese Labour is defended because it enriches the mine owners” (http://labourmanifesto.com/1906/1906-labour-manifesto.shtml). This does not alter the point that Marxism has a historical commitment against racism and sexism.
↑7 ‘No place for anti-Semitism’ Weekly Worker September 18 2014.
↑8 Before 1940, of course, it was a matter of maintaining British imperial interests: for example, the 1924 MacDonald Labour government continued support for ‘air control’ bombing in Iraq and elsewhere – see JS Corum, ‘The myth of air control: reassessing the history’ Aerospace Power Journalwinter 2000, pp61-77.
↑9 In between sections 13 and 19 is a quantity of complexity posed by the fact that age, sex and disability actually pose different discrimination problems to race and nationality; but that is a problem with the design of the 2010 act, not with the Labour Party’s new rule.
Anti-Semitism, Conference 2017

In defence of history: Interview with Moshé Machover

updated on October 5

Labour Party Marxists attracted much praise and support from delegates at the Labour Party conference, in particular because of the excellent ‘Anti-Zionism does not equal anti-Semitism’ article written by Moshé Machover  LPM no 17. Since then the right has taken its revenge. Around the country anyone who has expressed a liking for the LPM online or forwarded an article could well be on the receiving end of an expulsion letter. One of them is Moshé Machover. LPM’s Reg Kingston spoke to him

LPM: What do you make of the charges leveled against you?

As far as I can see, they have not twisted what I said. What is twisted is their sly, toxic ‘definition of anti-Semitism’. In relation to the second charge all I have to say is this: I am not, nor ever have been, a member of the organisations cited: CPGB and LPM (to quote the old McCarthyite formula). However, I can’t deny or confirm being ‘associated’ with them, because I do not know what this is supposed to mean.

Moreover, I suspect that at least part of the ‘evidence’ that these are “political organisation[s] with incompatible aims to the Labour Party” is the fact that you published my articles and invited me to give talks …

LPM: Frankly, I enjoyed your article but I didn’t anticipate it would cause so much fuss! How do you explain the vehemence of the attacks on your contribution? Why is this happening?

MM: It’s the result of a conjunction of two things. I follow the Israeli press very closely and the wider political discussions in Israel in general. Quite some time ago – and I’m talking about before anyone imagined that Corbyn would be Labour Party leader (least of all himself!) – there was a feeling in Israeli establishment circles that they were losing the propaganda war. They responded with the Hasbara campaign.1)Hasbara is a Hebrew word for the public relations efforts of the Israeli state to disseminate abroad positive propaganda about itself and its actions.

This was part of a decision was made to go onto the offensive: in a sense, it’s the last ditch attempt to rescue the international reputation of this state. They are losing credibility on the arena of what could be called international opinion, but – more importantly – they are losing the Jewish public outside Israel, especially those under 30. There is a clear generational shift in opinion. These people are becoming very critical of Israel and its colonisation project.

You could see a sign of this at the Labour conference on September 27, in Corbyn’s leader speech to close the event. His call for Israel to stop the oppression of the Palestinians and to end the savage oppression of these people won loud applause.2)“…let’s give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict” (https://www.totalpolitics.com/articles/news/jeremy-corbyn%E2%80%99s-2017-labour-conference-speech-full-transcript) This was a sign of the times. It’s an indicator of what the general public has come to feel – including a large percentage of Jewish people, especially the youth.

Remember, the Israeli establishment identified this quite some time before Corbyn’s breakthrough was on the agenda. They had already decided to go on the attack internationally, using this ‘dirty bomb’ tactic of labelling any criticism of Zionism and its colonisation project as anti-Semitic.

In the UK, they found useful fools in the form of the Labour right wing. The Israeli state’s propaganda tactic of smearing all criticism of itself as anti-Jewish coincided with the Labour’s right’s need to discredit Corbyn and the left of the party.

Now Corbyn has plenty of enemies – both inside and outside the party! So this smear tactic was eagerly seized upon – including by people who care absolutely nothing about the issues of Israel-Palestine, the Jews, Zionism and all these important questions. They are totally cynical in their use of these issues. As Chris Williamson’s phrase goes, the Labour right “weaponised” the sensitive and complex issue of anti-Semitism for the sake of narrow, factional advantage against a left in the Labour Party that was growing and threatening to overwhelm them.

It’s a dirty war.

LPM: Mike Katz of the Jewish Labour Movement 3)Mike Katz is a leading member of the Jewish Labour Movement. A fuller biography of the man can be read here – http://www.mikekatz.org/about-me/ dubbed you an “amoral historian” in conversation with one of our supporters at the Brighton Labour conference. He couldn’t really elaborate on this category when challenged to do so. He didn’t directly contest the veracity of anything you said: he simply seemed to be implying that bringing up the issue of the limited collaboration between Zionist organisations as the Nazi regime at all is outside the boundaries of social/political acceptability. But, as I say, that’s a guess! What do you think he’s talking about?

MM: Well, I’m not quite sure. I have made my views about history and morality quite clear in the past. They can be found in a book I published in 2012 and in public lectures I gave in London in 2006.4)Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and resolution, Haymarket Books, Chicago 2012. Also see lecture http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2006-11-30/moshe-machover-israelis-and-palestinians-conflict-and-resolution/

In these, I make it crystal clear that moral judgements of historical events are very important. But first, you need the facts. You mustn’t start with a moral, value-laden attitude to past events. In the first instance, establish what happened. The moral judgements must come later.

Everyone is entitled to their own moral assessments of the historical actions of individuals, groups, parties or social classes. We can disagree. But people are not entitled to ‘alternative facts’. The factual record I refer to in my article is there, it is available to access, the basic record of the events I write about is uncontested. (As you say, Mike Katz didn’t contest them either!) So, accept that these events took place, they are part of history and must be explained. Then let’s talk about morality!

LPM: The JLM seem to approach historical truth and investigation with parameters that set by what is sayable – what is permitted to be spoken of, regardless of whether it is an actual historical fact.

MM: Here are some historical facts, then. We are closing in on the century of the Balfour declaration.5)The Balfour Declaration was a public statement in the form of a letter to Lord Rothschild, issued by the British government during WWI announcing support for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. The area was then an Ottoman region with an Arab population and a tiny Jewish minority. It’s interesting to read what the Board of Deputies of British Jews said about it at the time. During the discussions around the declaration, spokespeople of the BDBJ expressed consistent and fundamental objections to the general plan for the Zionist colonisation of Palestine and specifically to the idea that the Jews in Britain were a separate race or nationality.

They insisted that Jewishness is a religion. Take Lucien Wolf,6)Lucien Wolf was a British-Jewish journalist and historian of Anglo-Jewry. He was a campaigner for Jewish civil rights and an outspoken opponent of political Zionism. a leading light in the BDBJ. In a famous letter to Lord Rothschild while the negotiations that resulted in the Balfour Declaration were taking place, he took great exception to the Zionist idea that it was “self-delusional for any Jew to believe him or herself to be English by nationality and Jewish by faith”. This is how Wolf responded:

I have spent most of my life in combating these very doctrines when presented to me in the form of anti-Semitism and I can only regard them as the more dangerous when they come to me in the guise of Zionism. They constitute a capitulation to our enemies which have absolutely no justification in history, ethnology or the facts of everyday life…

In fact, the Zionists of that time – who, it must be remembered, were a minority amongst British Jews and minorities in all western European countries – would have regarded Wolf’s stance as abominable.

Later, we have the Montefiore brothers – Alexander and Claude, who were, respectively, the presidents of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and of the Anglo-Jewish Association. These two penned a letter to The Times, published on May 24, 1917. In it, they express a similar sentiment:

“Establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine founded on the theory of Jewish homelessness would have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands, undermining their hard-won position as citizens and nationals of those lands.”

So, what they are saying is that our nationality is British; we are Jewish by religion. In fact, they go on to reject the idea of:

a secular Jewish nationality recruited on some loose and obscure principle of race and of ethnographic peculiarity.

LPM: And isn’t this the specific feature that you point to when you reference the limited ‘commonality’ of one aspect Zionism and the Nazis. The notion of the Jews as a race; the idea that they could not live amongst gentiles without constant conflict and friction; that assimilation was an illusion and, therefore, there was the need for the Jews to separate themselves from the Gentiles and vice versa?

MM: Yes, but let’s remember something about that Heydrich7)Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking Nazi SS commander during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust. quotation in my original article – the one that caused LPMers so much trouble from JLM activists outside the Labour conference!8)http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/john-mann-mp-expel-labour-party-marxists/ In this, Heydrich is responding to a reciprocal overture on the part of German Zionists. Let me put this in its historical context.

This context was the publication of the notorious, abominable Nuremberg Laws against German Jews – probably the foulest racist laws enacted.9)The Nuremberg laws (1935) institutionalised many of the racial theories of Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.” These were published in September 1935. Of course, most German Jews felt the same as Lucien Wolf and the Montefiores in Britain: they regarded themselves as Germans by nationality and Jews by religion or religious background.

But a minority amongst the community – the Zionists – welcomed the Nuremburg laws! Here is a quote from the official organ of the Zionist movement in Germany – it is available in Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem. The name of this journal was Jüdische Rundschau. Specifically, it was an editorial, signed by the editor, a certain Mr Brendt, which welcome the fact that Germany had recognised the Jews not as part of the German people, but as separate nationality/race. (In Germany – and in many other places at that time – the words ‘nation’ and ‘race’ tended to be treated as synonyms). Brendt refers to the resolution recently passed by the 19th World Zionist Congress (1935), held in Lucerne in Switzerland. He says that this resolution put an end to any talk of Judaism being simply a religion. And now, he says, speaking of the Nuremberg laws:

Germany has merely drawn the practical consequences from this and is meeting the demand of the International Zionist Congress when it declares the Jews now living in Germany to be a national minority.

So, according to this leading Zionist, by enacting the Nuremburg laws, the German Reich is implicitly accepting the position of the international Zionist Congress.

Of course, we look back at this history with the 20/20 vision of hindsight. We know the end of the story as it were; where the Jews of Europe actually ended up – facing physical extermination. And, of course, you cannot be sure that Heydrich himself was guilty of dissimulation when he responded positively to this overture. He may have been lying; or, as some historians argue, that at the point in history the ‘Final Solution’ was not yet the fixed policy of the Nazi state.

In some ways, this question of intention is a secondary matter. Heydrich, writing in the SS paper Das Schwarze Korps, is responding within days of that editorial in that official Zionist organ, and he explicitly states that “the government [ie, the Nazis in power] finds itself in complete agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry itself, the so-called Zionism, with its recognition of the solidarity of Jewry throughout the world and the rejection of all assimilationist ideas.”

It was very important for the Nazis state to insist that Jews were not simply a religion because it was not the policy – in general – of their state to persecute and discriminate in such an extreme way against religious minorities. Thus, they insisted that the Jews were a separate nation/race. In this respect, their view clearly coincided with that of the Zionist movement – which, remember, was a minority viewpoint amongst German Jews. In that sense, Heydrich was using the Zionists against the majority of the German Jews. He was using Zionism as a polemical stick against the majority viewpoint of German Jews – for assimilation and full civil rights in Germany, the country of their birth.

LPM: What’s your estimation of the Labour conference and what does the controversy around this sensitive question tell us about the current balance of forces between the left and right?

There are contradictions. One the one hand, Corbyn wins enthusiastic applause when he calls for an end of the oppressions of the Palestinians. On the other hand, we have an ongoing guerrilla war in the lower levels of the party – at the level of council votes, for example – where bad positions are being adopted, very dangerous votes taken.

So, the “weaponisation” of anti-Semitism continues, but can move into different arenas of struggle. We can make progress in the Labour Party itself, but then in local councils the rightwing Labour councillors can stop education on the issue of Israel-Palestine, they can close down actions and meetings in solidarity with the Palestinians, etc.

The fight isn’t over! This dirty war against us will continue and probably intensify as the pro-Israel apologists and rightist in the party lose ground.

 

References

References
↑1 Hasbara is a Hebrew word for the public relations efforts of the Israeli state to disseminate abroad positive propaganda about itself and its actions.
↑2 “…let’s give real support to end the oppression of the Palestinian people, the 50-year occupation and illegal settlement expansion and move to a genuine two-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict” (https://www.totalpolitics.com/articles/news/jeremy-corbyn%E2%80%99s-2017-labour-conference-speech-full-transcript
↑3 Mike Katz is a leading member of the Jewish Labour Movement. A fuller biography of the man can be read here – http://www.mikekatz.org/about-me/
↑4 Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and resolution, Haymarket Books, Chicago 2012. Also see lecture http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2006-11-30/moshe-machover-israelis-and-palestinians-conflict-and-resolution/
↑5 The Balfour Declaration was a public statement in the form of a letter to Lord Rothschild, issued by the British government during WWI announcing support for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. The area was then an Ottoman region with an Arab population and a tiny Jewish minority.
↑6 Lucien Wolf was a British-Jewish journalist and historian of Anglo-Jewry. He was a campaigner for Jewish civil rights and an outspoken opponent of political Zionism.
↑7 Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich was a high-ranking Nazi SS commander during World War II, and a main architect of the Holocaust.
↑8 http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/john-mann-mp-expel-labour-party-marxists/
↑9 The Nuremberg laws (1935) institutionalised many of the racial theories of Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of “German or related blood.”
Anti-Semitism, Conference 2017

John Mann MP: “Expel Labour Party Marxists”

It had to happen sooner or later. Now Labour Party Marxists has been accused of being “anti-Semitic”. John Mann MP and the Holocaust Educational Trust demand our members be expelled from the Labour Party for the crime for carrying an article in our latest edition of Labour Party Marxists by Moshé Machover, which discusses if Zionists really did collaborate with the early Nazi regime.

We call on socialists to read the actual article and make up their own mind.

Below is the article in today’s The Times (September 27) carrying the accusations.

And here the article by Moshé Machover, a lifelong anti-Zionist Jewish Israeli campaigner.

The Times: Throw out antisemitic party members now, Corbyn urged

Jeremy Corbyn has been called on to investigate a left-wing group accused of producing and circulating antisemitic literature on the fringes of Labour’s conference.

Labour MPs and the Holocaust Educational Trust demanded a personal intervention by the Labour leader to identify and discipline members of the Labour Party Marxists group, which disseminated a leaflet quoting a prominent Nazi.

The organisation is not affiliated with Labour officially, but James Marshall, a senior figure in the group, said that all of its supporters, including himself, were card-carrying members.

The leaflet handed out in Brighton discussed the “commonality between Zionists and Nazis”. It quoted Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi architect of the Final Solution, saying in 1935: “National Socialists had no intention of attacking Jewish people.”

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “I don’t understand how it is acceptable to be handing out such disgusting literature outside Labour’s conference quoting one of the 20th century’s most notorious antisemites and architects of the Final Solution, Reinhard Heydrich.”

She added: “The Labour Party Marxists’ guide to motions at the conference suggests that at least some of their supporters are party members — Labour needs to identify who is linked to this group.”

John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw and chairman of the all-party parliamentary group against antisemitism, said: “The Labour Party Marxists should all be thrown out of the party, every single one of them. We want them investigated and then thrown out. Their scurrilous publication, which contains antisemitic material, is good only for the recycling bin.”

As the row threatened to overshadow the party’s four-day gathering, the Labour leader of Brighton & Hove council warned that it could be the last time the party hosts its conference in the seaside town unless it gets a grip on the problem. Warren Morgan said he was very concerned at “the antisemitism being aired publicly in fringe meetings and on the floor of conference”.

Ken Livingstone, the former Labour mayor of London, also joined the row, telling TalkRadio: “Some people have made offensive comments, it doesn’t mean they’re inherently antisemitic and hate Jews. They just go over the top when they criticise Israel.”

Mr Livingstone, 72, has been disciplined by the party for comments he made about Hitler last year and is banned from holding office in Labour until next April, but is still a member of his local party.

A heated debate took place in the conference hall on a rule change on antisemitism. Mike Katz, a delegate from the Jewish Labour Movement, welcomed Mr Corbyn’s backing for the new rule, which strengthens the party’s disciplinary process for dealing with antisemitic and other forms of prejudicial views and behaviour.

During the debate one delegate, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, accused the party of policing “thought crime”, saying: “Obviously if you express hateful opinions you’ve got to be disciplined, or at least educated — but holding them? We can’t be having it.”

Yesterday the Equalities and Human Rights Commission said Labour needed to do more to prove it was not a racist party.

Wes Streeting, Labour MP for Ilford North, said: “Anyone who says Labour doesn’t have a problem with antisemitism is in cloud cuckoo land.”

Mr Corbyn rejected accusations that Labour had become the new “nasty party”. “Nobody should be abused, whoever they are,” he said. “We have just passed a motion on racism and antisemitism which is comprehensive and inclusive and is supported by all wings of the party and unanimously agreed by our national executive.

“Anyone using antisemitic language, anyone using any form of racist language, is completely at odds with the beliefs of this party.”

Len McCluskey, general secretary of Unite, last night claimed the row was “mood music created by people trying to undermine Jeremy Corbyn”.

Mr Marshall, of the Labour Party Marxists, said: “The idea the Labour Party Marxists article in question is antisemitic is risible. It was written by Moshé Machover, a Jewish Israeli. They [the critics] are equating antisemitism with antizionism.”

Jewish Labour Movement
The only Jewish community socialist society officially affiliated to Labour. The pro-Zionist organisation boasts MPs and councillors among its supporters. The JLM helped to devise the rule change that Labour backed yesterday strengthening the party’s disciplinary process. Some Labour members, including Jewish party backers, have complained the JLM does not represent their views.

Free Speech on Israel
The independent group says it “was founded as a predominantly Jewish campaign group in Spring 2016 to counter the manufactured moral panic over a supposed epidemic of antisemitism in the UK. Criticism of Israel and of its founding ideology, Zionism, has been misrepresented as antisemitic.”

Labour Party Marxists
The independent group has published many articles about Israel. It was accused of producing literature quoting Reinhard Heydrich, architect of the Final Solution, that was antisemitic — an allegation it rejected — and handing it out on the conference’s fringes.

Conference 2017, Red Pages

LPM @ Labour conference: Wednesday September 27

In this issue of Red Pages:

  • Don’t relax – now the real work begins!
  • Stuffed parrots, texts from Momentum – but very little real decision-making. A first time delegate reports
  • Transform the Labour Party – the basis of our submission to the Corbyn review
  • Support trade unionists in Iran!

Download the PDF version of this issue here: part 1 and part 2

Don’t relax – now the real work begins!

This conference was certainly historic: almost 1,200 delegates and 13,000 visitors made this the largest Labour conference ever. It was also very left-wing, at least in its composition. There are lots of things the left can celebrate:

  • We defeated attempts by the right to portray Corbyn supporters as anti-Semites. Clearly designed to shut up the left, it achieved exactly the opposite effect: there were dozens of speakers at conference who spoke out against the right wing’s vile witch-hunt and in favour of the rights of Palestinians. This ran like a red thread through conference.
  • Pressure from below (and perhaps Corbyn?) forced the Conference Arrangements Committee to re-insert Labour’s support for the Palestinian cause into the National Policy Forum’s report.
  • Labour First and Progress played no role at conference – and were visibly upset about it: their dismissal of the majority of new members as “naïve” and their rants against the Marxist “bullies”show that they have their backs against the wall.

But conference business itself was still firmly in the hands of the right:

  • There were no real debates on anything. The documents produced by the National Policy Forum (to which Tony Blair outsourced policy making) are full of waffle and without any concrete policies. Contemporary motions were distributed way too late and, once merged, were too vague and non-committal.
  • The NEC exercised a lot of pressure on delegates to remit all their rule change proposals in favour of the ‘Party Democracy Review’, even those that do not fall in the review’s remit. Conference should have had a chance to properly debate and vote on, say, the McDonnell amendment, the need to abolish the 12 months delay affecting CLP rule changes and the fight to democratise Young Labour.
  • About a third of contemporary motions were ruled out of order by the CAC, including some that wanted to end British weapons exports to Saudi-Arabia, because a NPF document touches on the issue.

Clearly, the left still has a long way to go in its fight to transform the Labour Party. For a start, conference must become the sole, sovereign decision-making body of the party and the NPF should be abolished. It is an instrument to stop members from shaping party policy.

The next 12 months are going to be crucial in our fight to democratise the party and take it out of the hands of people like Iain McNicol. It is the bureaucratic middle layer that has been resisting reforms; the top and the bottom are now firmly in the hands of the left:

  • With the addition of three more members chosen by CLPs, the NEC will have a (slim) left-wing majority.
  • The new CAC (in office for two years), has a pro-Corbyn majority: Seema Chandwani and Billy Hayes were elected by the membership; two more seats are held by the Unite union.
  • The so-called ‘Corbyn review’ will be run by Katy Clarke, Claudia Webbe and Andy Kerr – all in the Corbyn camp.

This gives us an unprecedented opportunity to transform the party. However! We urge Labour Party members not to rely on Jeremy Corbyn and his allies on the NEC to sort things out for them. Corbyn has relented to pressure from the right on too many issues, be it the ‘anti-Semitism scandal’, Trident or free movement. Corbyn and his allies seem to believe that the saboteurs can been pacified and ‘party unity’ consolidated by giving ground on these issues. This is dangerously naive. The outcome of the Chakrabarti enquiry shows the opposite to be true. The witch-hunters’ appetites grow in the eating.

Members need to exercise as much pressure as possible over two concrete issues arising from conference:

1. The Corbyn review must be as democratic and wide-ranging as possible. Clearly, the party is ripe for radical reform. Branches must be invited to have their views heard – and then implemented! The review could easily become a pseudo-democratic exercise, where people send in their thoughts and we end up with another compromise between the left and the right. This is, of course, the way the NPF currently works.

2. The NEC compromise on ‘prejudice’ is a fudge. The worst excesses of the Jewish Labour Movement’s rule change have been removed. But its fingerprints are all over the compromise and they are trying to enshrine in the new code of conduct the controversial ‘Working Definition of Anti-Semitism’, which conflates anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The JLM must not be allowed to continue to exercise pressure beyond its numerical size. Conference has shown clearly that the membership has no interest in appeasing those determined to destabilise Corbyn’s leadership.

 

Stuffed parrots, texts from Momentum – but very little real decision-making

A first-time delegate gives his impressions of conference

I really enjoyed my first time at conference. It was fantastic to see so many like-minded people, quite a few of whom were very happy to describe themselves openly as Marxists. I did not expect the mood to be so overwhelmingly pro-left, so clearly behind Corbyn and so visibly pro-Palestinian. It’s evident that the panic in the right-wing press over the anti-Semitism scandal helped to consolidate the left at conference. Of course, delegates were eating out of John McDonnell’s and Jeremy Corbyn’s hands. But I did not expect everybody around me to get up to whoop and cheer when Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi made her pro-Palestinian speech. I could not see anybody staying in their seat. Another speaker got a standing ovation for mentioning that she was a member of Momentum.

I also did not expect the right to be quite so small and useless. Apart from a small group of people handing out Labour First’s White Pages, I hardly came across them and they were almost invisible at conference.

Having said all of that, I can’t say I really understood what was going on most of the time. I don’t think delegates were really in control of things here. Everything is left to the last moment, and because of the various NEC compromises it was difficult to prepare. You really have to study the daily update from the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC). For example, it was only by chance that I saw the proposed change to the National Policy Forum’s document on Israel/Palestine in Sunday’s report.

This year’s conference agenda was designed, so we were told, to maximise the number of contributions from the conference floor, as opposed to just the party big-wigs. But the method of selecting these ordinary delegates was hard to believe. Speakers were selected by the chair in groups of three, from different parts of the floor. However, up to fifty would-be speakers attempting to catch the eye of the chair led to the employment of ever more bizarre theatrics: comrades were seen holding up hats, scarves, stuffed parrots, inflated bananas, open umbrellas… you get the picture. Those just raising their hand stood no chance.

But it was worse than that – in one session the chair admitted that they could only see the delegates in the front section of the audience, so anyone wanting to speak from the raised section at the rear would have a long wait. Delegates around me noticed that often the randomly selected speakers seemed to be very well informed with speeches that must have taken a while to prepare. Perhaps it was not that random after all.

This chaotic method of speaker selection was matched by the incoherent structure of the sessions. In no way could they be called debates – there was no order to the contributions and many topics in the NPF documents (to which Tony Blair outsourced policy-making) were not covered at all.

It was not much better when it came to contemporary motions. We only got to see them in the CAC’s report on Sunday morning: a thick booklet with over 120 motions, which were grouped into different ‘themes’. And by 3.30pm we were supposed to have read them all and then decide in the ‘priorities ballot’ which four themes we would like to see debated at conference. That is impossible of course. And of course it is designed to be impossible.

This is where the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy comes in. They certainly worked through the conference agenda (and dragged Momentum along with them – they are linked, of course. As I understand it, Momentum’s owner Jon Lansman used to be a leading light in the CLPD back in the day).

As CLPD’s Pete Willsman has been sitting on the NEC for decades, he gets prior access to material and so his comrades were able to read through all the motions in advance. They used their fringe meeting on Saturday evening to instruct/suggest to delegates which themes to vote on. They already knew that the unions would go for growth and investment, public sector pay, workers’ rights and Grenfell. So, in order to maximise the motions heard, delegates were urged to vote for social care, NHS, housing and railways. Lo and behold, these themes got the vast majority of CLPs’ votes.

As a normal delegate, I felt pretty much out of the loop most of the time, so this attempt to coordinate and explain issues was most welcome. At their fringe meeting on Tuesday night, CLPD comrades also urged CLP delegates to remit all their rule changes in order to get the ‘Corbyn review’ through unopposed. I must say I had my doubts about that tactic, as my own CLP was one of those who voted through the ‘McDonnell amendment’: we wanted to see a dramatic reduction to 5 per cent of the nominations needed from MPs and MEPs in order to get a leadership candidate on to the ballot paper. In th end, we were one of the many CLPs who “regretfully” remitted their rule change.

Momentum was a bit short on the arguments, but better with technology. They were texting us throughout the conference, giving voting advice. Particularly the session on Monday afternoon has to be regarded as a brilliant example of Momentum’s ability to issue voting instructions to delegates at very short notice. The very last speaker in the session moved a reference back of a couple of paragraphs in the NPF document on ‘Work, Pensions and Equality’. As he was literally the last speaker, there was no time to hear other speakers for or against, so delegates really had no idea which way to vote.

But the Momentum organisers must have decided it was an important issue, because text messages were despatched to all their supporting delegates on the conference floor: “Please vote for the reference back to reverse cuts to social security!” The document only criticised the cuts, but the delegate wanted the Labour Party to commit itself to reversing them. By the time the vote was taken a few minutes later, the message had got through. The reference back was carried, with support from a huge majority of CLP delegates. The NPF will now have to look at it again – though of course ordinary members will have to wait to see if the 200 or so members of the NPF will actually enforce this in their next annual report.

This kind of decision-making is very much hit and miss. There were plenty of other issues in the very vacuous NPF reports that deserved to be referenced back, but I presume nobody was called in to make the point! In the end, I ended up abstaining on all of the documents, because they are really full of waffle, without any clear, coherent policy proposals. Ditto the composited contemporary motions. As has been common practice, they have been merged into the most bland and uncontroversial motherhood and apple pie-type statements. Impossible to vote against.

The atmosphere of conference was joyous, even jubilant. It’s just a shame that we haven’t got a hold on conference and the party bureaucracy yet. Conference really hammered home to me the need to change that!

 

 

Transform the Labour Party

Jeremy Corbyn says he wants to find ways to give more power to ordinary members and a conference that makes the final decision on policy. The democracy commission has now been agreed and will report next year. All this is very welcome. James Marshall presents a 13-point platform that will provide the basis for the submission by Labour Party Marxists

1. Mandatory reselection is crucial,   though it terrifies the right. We read that this, “even more than nuclear disarmament and membership of the European Community, became the main catalyst for the launch of the breakaway Social Democratic Party” in March 1981. In that same treacherous spirit as the founders of the SDP, Progress – Lord David Sainsbury’s party within a party – furiously denounces mandatory reselection as “a weapon of fear and intimidation”. Yes, mandatory reselection is viewed as an affront by every rightwing wrecker, every hireling, every parliamentary careerist.

It is worth looking at the background. Interestingly, and with good foundation, we read on the Progress website that mandatory reselection carries “echoes of the Paris Commune, and of the Russian soviets, where delegates were subject to recall if they displeased their local citizenry. It rests on the idea that leaders will always be tempted to sell you out, once they get power.” Well, surely, that is what history actually shows.

For decades, sitting Labour MPs – certainly those with safe seats – enjoyed a job for life (or for as long as no better offer came along). They might have deigned to visit their constituency once or twice a year, deliver a speech to the AGM and write an occasional letter to the local newspaper. Meanwhile they lived a pampered, middle class life, frequented various London gentlemen’s clubs and spent their weekends in the home counties with Lord this and Lady that. Despite such evident moral corruption, they were automatically the candidate for the next election. Unless found guilty of an act of gross indecency or had the party whip withdrawn, they could do as they pleased.

With the insurgent rise of Bennism that totally unacceptable situation was called into question. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, founded in 1973, committed itself to a range of rule changes – the mandatory reselection of MPs was finally agreed by the 1980 conference. What this saw, however, was  not a Labour Party equivalent of the Paris Commune or the Russian soviets. There was no right to instantly recall. Nevertheless, once in each parliament, our MPs had to secure the endorsement of their local General Management Committee. Note, GMCs were made up of delegates elected by local party and trade union branches. They were sizable bodies too, typically consisting of 80, 90, 100 or even more delegates.

At the prompting of the bourgeois media, Neil Kinnock, desperately seeking acceptability, sought to extract trade unions from the voting process altogether. He failed, but accepted a compromise. A local electoral college for the selection and reselection of candidates was introduced. Ordinary members were given a direct vote for the first time, leaving GMCs with the right to nominate and shortlist only. This electoral college system gave unions and affiliated organisations up to 40% of the vote, with ordinary members having some 60% (the actual balance was different in each seat, depending on party and union membership).

Trigger ballots were a product of the 1990s. Formally honouring conference’s “desire to maintain reselection”, they made it significantly “easier for MPs to defend their positions”. Trigger ballots allowed for a sitting MP to be subject to a full-scale ballot of the membership. But only if they lost a trigger ballot.

We say, all elected Labour representatives must, by rule, be subject to a one-member, one-vote mandatory reselection. MPs have to be brought under democratic control – from above, by the National Executive Committee; from below by Constituency Labour Parties.

2. We urgently need a sovereign conference once again. The cumbersome, undemocratic and oppressive structures, especially those put in place under the Blair supremacy, must be abolished. The joint policy committee, the national policy forums, etc, have to go.

3. We are against the idea of electing the general secretary through an all-member   ballot. The NEC should elect all national officers. Therefore the post of Labour leader should be replaced by the post of NEC chair. We favour annual elections with the right to recall at any time. As a matter of basic principle Marxists oppose all forms of Bonapartism.

4. In Scotland and Wales, their executive committees should likewise elect their own officers, including their representatives on the all-UK NEC. We are against a single individual in Scotland and Wales having the right to appoint themselves, or a trusted clone.

5. Scrap the hated compliance unit “and get back to the situation where people are automatically accepted for membership, unless there is a significant issue that comes up” (John McDonnell). The compliance unit operates in the murky shadows, routinely leaks to the capitalist media and makes rulings in a completely biased manner. We want to welcome into our ranks the bulk of those who have been barred from membership by the compliance unit. Many of them are good socialists with a proven record.

6. Those expelled from membership ought to have the right to reapply, not after five years, but just one year. All disciplinary procedures should be completed within three months. Endless delay violates natural justice.

7. The huge swing towards Labour in the June 2017 general election happened in no small part due to the enthusiasm of young voters. Yet Young Labour a is creaking, uninviting, thoroughly bureaucratic construction. We need a one-member-one-vote organisation. That must include Young Labour’s National Committee. At present, two-thirds of votes are accounted for by appointees from affiliated organisations, eg, the Fabians and Co-op Party, and affiliated trade unions. Instead of the bi-annual policy and national committee elections, their must be an annual conference that can both decide on policy and elect a leadership. Young Labour has to have the right to decide on its own constitution and standing orders.

8. We need a rule that commits the NEC to securing the affiliation of all trade unions to the Labour Party. The FBU has already reaffiliated. Excellent. But what about the RMT? Let us win RMT militants to finally drop their support for the thoroughly misconceived Tusc project. Instead reaffiliate to the Labour Party. And what about the NUT? This year’s Cardiff conference saw the executive narrowly win an amendment, by 50.63% to 49.37%, which in effect ruled out considering affiliation … at this moment. This can be changed … if we campaign to win hearts and minds. Then there is PCS. Thankfully, Mark Serwotka, its leftwing general secretary, has at last come round to the idea. Yes, PCS affiliation will run up against the Trades Disputes and Trade Union Act (1927), introduced by a vengeful Tory government in the aftermath of the general strike. Civil service unions were barred from affiliating to the Labour Party and the TUC. The Civil and Public Services Association – predecessor of PCS – reaffiliated to the TUC in 1946. Now, however, surely, it is time for PCS to reaffiliate to the Labour Party. Force another change in the law.

9. There has to be a shift in the party, away from the HQ, regional officers, the leader’s office, the Parliamentary Labour Party, etc. CLPs must be empowered. Towards that end there has to be proper financing. CLPs should be allocated 50% of the individual membership dues. That will help with producing publicity material, hiring rooms, paying for full-time officers, providing transport, setting up websites, etc. That way our CLPs can be made into vibrant centres of socialist organisation, education and action.

10. Our goal must be a Labour Party, that, in the words of Keir Hardie, can “organise the working class into a great, independent political power to fight for the coming of socialism”. We therefore need rule changes to once again allow left, communist and revolutionary groups and parties to affiliate. As long as they do not stand against us in elections, this can only but strengthen Labour as a federal party. Nowadays affiliated organisations include the Fabians, Christians on the left, the Cooperative Party and, problematically, the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Business. Encourage the Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Party in England and Wales, Communist Party of Great Britain, etc, to join our ranks.

11. Being an MP ought to be an honour, not a career ladder, not a way for university graduates to secure a lucrative living. A particularly potent weapon here would be a rule requiring all our elected representatives and officials to take only the average wage of a skilled worker – a principle upheld by the Paris Commune and the Bolshevik revolution. Our MPs are on a basic £67,060 annual salary. On top of that they get around £12,000 in expenses and allowances, putting them on £79,060 (yet at present Labour MPs are only obliged to pay the £82 parliamentarians’ subscription rate).

Let them keep the average skilled workers’ wage – say £40,000 (plus legitimate expenses). Then, however, they should hand the balance over to the party. Even without a rule change Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Dianne Abbott ought to take the lead here.

12. Relying on the favours of the capitalist press, radio and TV is a fools game. Yes, it worked splendidly for Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell. But, as Neil Kinnock, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband found to their cost, to live by the mainstream media is to die by the mainstream media.

The NEC should, by rule, establish and maintain our own press, radio and TV. To state the obvious, tweeting and texting have severe limits. Brilliant mediums for transmitting simple, short and sharp messages to the already converted. But, when it comes to complex ideas, debating history and charting out political strategies they are worse than useless. We should provide time and space for controversy and the whole range of different opinions within the party. Without that our media will be dull, lifeless, pointless. We should also take full advantage of parliamentary immunity to circumvent the oppressive libel laws. Then we can say the unsayable. That would prove to be electric in terms of shaping and mobilising public opinion.

13. We should adopt a new clause four. Not a return to the old, 1918, version, but a commitment to working class rule and a society which aims for a stateless, classless, moneyless society, which embodies the principle, ‘From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs’. That is what socialism is all about. Not a measly £10 per hour “living wage”, shifting the tax balance and a state investment bank. No, re-establishing socialism in the mainstream of politics means committing the Labour Party to achieving a “democratic republic”.

johnMcDonnell HopiSupport trade unionists in Iran!

John McDonnell has been the honorary chair of the anti-war/solidarity campaign Hands Off the people of Iran for many years. He outlined its core principles in a speech to our 2011 conference:

“While opposing any imperialist attacks, we positioned ourselves in clear, active solidarity with the people of Iran who are fighting against their theocratic regime. That also led us to clearly oppose all sanctions on the country, because in our view that is just another form of imperialism attacking the people of Iran. I think we have successfully engaged others in that discussion.”

HOPI is now calling for solidarity with three prominent worker activists in Iran. Please sign and circulate this statement and contact HOPI (details below) to receive more info on this important campaign:

Three prominent activists are on hunger strike in an Iranian prison. They are protesting against unjust sentences handed down to them by the Islamic courts. The comrades are in urgent need of solidarity, especially from trade unionists and democrats internationally. The three are:

• Reza Shahbi ‐ a member of the coordinating committee of the syndicate of the Vahed Bus Company;

• Abbas Abdi ‐ executive member of teachers’ guild;

• Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi ‐ former spokesperson of the teachers’ guild.

Shahabi, Abdi and Langaroudi have had these sentences imposed as a result of their activities in defence of their fellow workers. Worryingly, the hunger strike is starting to have a serious effect on their health and is now endangering their lives. Reza Shahabi, for example, has refused food for more than six weeks.

We call on labour activists and defenders of the working class worldwide to do everything they can to save the lives of these leading activists and to build solidarity with them. We also express our grave concern for the lives of these labour activists and urge them to consider ending their hunger strike. The essential work they undertake in defence of thousands of workers in Iran is vital.

To add your name, email office@hopoi.info

Anti-Semitism, Conference 2017, Democracy and the Labour Party, The left, The right

Humpty Dumpty and ‘anti-Semitism’

The Jewish Labour Movement claims its rule change has been adopted by the Labour Party NEC, Kat Gugino begs to differ

On September 18, The Guardian claimed that Corbyn would be “backing” a rule change to this year’s Labour Party conference, moved by the Jewish Labour Movement.1)The Guardian September 18 Lo and behold, on September 19, the Jewish Chronicle joyfully reported that the Labour Party’s national executive committee, meeting earlier in the day, “unanimously” passed the JLM’s proposal.2)www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour- executive-gives-backing-to-new-measures-on- antisemitism-1.444751 Leftwing NEC member Darren Williams, however, writes on social media that “we approved an NEC rule change on dealing with prejudiced views and behaviour that avoided the more draconian approach favoured by the Jewish Labour Movement”. So who is telling the truth?

Well, that depends on who you ask and what question you ask. Clearly, the JLM’s fingerprints are all over the NEC compromise formulation (see below for the full text). The Jewish Chronicle quotes in its article “a spokesman from Jeremy Corbyn” as saying: “Jeremy thanks all those involved with drafting this motion, including the Jewish Labour Movement and Shami Chakrabarti.”

It is true, however, that the original JLM motion was not accepted. Tony Greenstein, a frequent writer in the Weekly Worker, believes the new formulation might simply represent a “pyrrhic victory” for the JLM. And he is right that one of the key aspects of the original motion was rejected: the JLM wanted a “hate incident” to be “defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation” (our emphasis).

This was a rather clumsy attempt by the JLM to misuse the recommendations of the MacPherson report, established after the killing of Stephen Lawrence, which found the police to be “institutionally racist”. MacPherson recommended that when a victim or someone else perceives an attack or hate incident as racially motivated, then the police must record it as such.

In that sense, the JLM has failed in its outrageous attempt to enshrine in the party’s rules that the Labour Party is institutionally anti-Semitic! The NEC formulation enshrines the need for at least some kind of evidence: “any incident which in their view might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice”. The JLM also failed in their attempt to explicitly enshrine the disciplining of members for comments or actions made in “private”.

If successful, the motion would have handed Iain McNicol and the compliance unit a devastatingly effective witch-hunting app: members could have been explicitly punished on the basis of what others perceive to be their motivation for specific comments or actions, not what is was actually done or stated.

JLM threats

Take the following threat from the JLM that we have received via a bourgeois journalist. Lucy Fisher, senior political correspondent of The Times, wrote to us on September 18:

“I was hoping to talk to someone at Labour Party Marxists about your conference voting guide, which we propose to report on tomorrow. The Jewish Labour Movement has expressed concern about lines in the document such as:

“‘This is supported by the Jewish Labour Movement, which already tells you that you should oppose without even having to read it.’

“‘The motion starts from the premise that the party has an “anti-Semitism problem”, which is palpably untrue.’

“‘This motion puts anti-Semitism (and cleverly, Islamophobia and racism) above the right to express opinions.’

“The chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement [presumably Jeremy Newmark] has said the document provides ‘an indication of the scale of the problem’ of anti-Semitism in Labour and has called on Labour to establish who is involved in your group, take action to discipline those involved and remove any representative platform from the group at conference.”

As you would expect from a reporter who works for a newspaper hostile to the left, Lucy has forgotten the word “probably” in the first sentence and is quoting half-sentences from our guide – and those entirely out of context. Still, even then, anybody apart from Jeremy Newark will struggle to find anything “anti- Semitic” in the above sentences.

Had Newmark had his way, then the mere fact that he feels we are acting out of “hostility or prejudice” would have been enough to see LPM members sent to the compliance unit. As the NEC formulation stands, this will not be enough.

Thinking bad things

Of course, Newmark is right: we are hostile to the Jewish Labour Movement. The JLM is, of course, an affiliate to the World Labour Zionist Movement, a loyal supporter of the state of Israel and home to many of those who have been so keen to save the Labour Party from its ‘unelectable’ leader.

Unfortunately, we are seeing yet another compromise that has characterised much of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Clearly, Corbyn and his allies seem to believe that they can pacify saboteurs and achieve ‘party unity’ by giving ground on these sorts of issues. This is dangerously naive. The outcome of the Chakrabarti enquiry showed the opposite to be true. The witch-hunters’ appetite will grow in the eating.

The worst excesses of the JLM motion (which, worryingly, also successfully went through six CLPs) have been removed, yes. But the fact remains that the NEC – and Corbyn – now seem to accept, albeit implicitly, the premise that Labour does indeed have an anti-Semitism problem. That is palpably untrue. It clearly does have an anti-left witch-hunt problem, as the suspensions of Ken Livingstone, Jackie Walker, Tony Greenstein and others clearly demonstrate. No doubt there are a minuscule number of individual members who hold anti- Semitic views – most of whom you would expect to belong to the party right, by the way. Labour is not some chemically pure ideological sect of a few hundred acolytes. We are a mass movement and therefore, to varying levels, may find in our ranks trace elements of some irrational minority prejudices that exist in wider society. The party – or, more specifically, the Labour left – has no more of an institutional anti-Semitism ‘problem’ than we have a problem with paranoid notions that 9/11 was an inside job or that shape- shifting space lizards run the world.3)All genuine manifestations of the poison of anti- Semitism must be fought vigorously. However,
it accounts for a small very small percentage
of ‘hate crimes’ in this country. The House of Commons home affairs committee published an October 2016 report, ‘Anti-Semitism in the UK’, noting that anti-Semitic hate crimes, however defined, total 1.4% of all racially inspired attacks. In the first half of the year there had been a rise
of 11% in anti-Semitic incidents, compared with 2015. Numerically, this rise was from 500 to 557. However, 24% of the total – 133 incidents in all – were on social media. And social media accounted for 44 out of the increase of 57

Clearly, the huge scale of the ‘scandal’ that broke over members in 2016 (and still reverberates) is actually in inverse proportion to the real size of the problem itself. Even at the height of the feverish hunt for ‘anti-Semites’, the NEC only ‘identified’ and took action against a grand total of 18 members.4)Labour List May 4 2016 Quite a few (like MP Naz Shah) were fully reinstated. Others, like Ken Livingstone and Jackie Walker, should be fully reinstated – nothing they said was even vaguely anti-Semitic.

In truth, we are in Alice in Wonderland territory here – or rather, Humpty Dumpty’s corner of it and his fast and loose approach to semantics.5)“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”
 Sections of the right of the party – with quite stomach-churning cynicism – have attempted to rebrand as ‘anti- Semitism’ even the discussion of some sensitive, but real facts of Zionism’s relationship with the early Nazi regime and the left’s critical stance on the Israeli state’s savage oppression of the Palestinian people.

The latter is a particularly smart move on behalf of the witch-hunters. With a few dishonourable exceptions,6)The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, for instance the Labour left is highly critical of the Israeli state’s ongoing colonial/expansionist oppression of the Palestinians and the appalling discrimination, displacement and denial of basic democratic rights that go with it. However, it is a crude and transparently false conclusion to draw from this that the left of the party wishes to see the poles of oppression simply reversed. There are different strategic approaches amongst comrades in solidarity with the Palestinian people (a single secular state, two viable state formations, etc). But a common theme of the left is the need for democratic consent of these two peoples to live side by side, sharing common, substantive democratic rights. In other words, the left in the party is overwhelmingly anti-Zionist, not anti-Semitic. These two very distinct categories have been conflated for the most contemptible of reasons. In the struggle between the left and right for the soul of the party, ‘anti-Semitism’ has been “weaponised”, as Chris Williamson MP quite rightly put it.7)The Guardian September 18 It has proved to be a successful tool in the drawn-out campaign to destabilise Jeremy Corbyn. Historically, Corbyn has been an ardent supporter of Palestinian rights. Worryingly, we are not sure where he stands now. It is probably fair to say that his stance has become more ‘flexible’.

We sincerely hope he has not come around to the stance of the national policy forum. The NPF is recommending a document to this year’s conference that would dramatically change the party’s stance on the question of Israel/Palestine. The 2017 election manifesto called for an end to Israel’s blockade, illegal occupation and settlements. But these basic democratic demands have been dropped, along with the pledge that “A Labour government will immediately recognise the state of Palestine”.

We would urge delegates to vote to refer back the NPF international document.

Original rule change proposed by Jewish Labour Movement

Bury South, Chipping Barnet, Hertsmere, Jewish Labour Movement, Manchester Withington, Streatham, Warrington South, referencing: Chapter 2, Clause I, Section 8 Conditions of membership, Page 9.

After the first sentence add a new sentence: A member of the Party who uses anti-semitic, Islamophobic, racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions in public, private, online or offline, as determined by the NEC, shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the Party.

Add at the end of the final sentence after “opinions”: except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism.

Insert new paragraph E: Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options from the following options: [same as D]

New proposed section on ‘Conditions of Membership’ (Chapter 2, Clause 1, Section 8) new additions in [brackets]

No member of the Party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is prejudicial, or in any act which in the opinion of the NEC is grossly detrimental to the Party. [The NEC shall take account of any codes of conduct currently in force and shall regard any incident which in their view might reasonably be seen to demonstrate hostility or prejudice based on age; disability; gender reassignment or identity; marriage and civil partnership; pregnancy and maternity; race; religion or belief; sex; or sexual orientation as conduct prejudicial to the Party: these shall include but not be limited to incidents involving racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia or otherwise racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions, sexual harassment, bullying or any form of intimidation towards another person on the basis of a protected characteristic as determined by the NEC, wherever it occurs, as conduct prejudicial to the Party.] Any dispute as to whether a member is in breach of the provisions of this sub-clause shall be determined by the NCC in accordance with Chapter 1 Clause IX above and the disciplinary rules and guidelines in Chapter 6 below. Where appropriate the NCC shall have regard to involvement in financial support for the organisation and/or the activities of any organisation declared ineligible for affiliation to the Party under Chapter 1.II.5 or 3.C above; or to the candidature of the members in opposition to an officially endorsed Labour Party candidate or the support for such candidature. The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions [, except in any instance inconsistent with the Party’s aims and values, agreed codes of conduct, or involving prejudice towards any protected characteristic.]

References

References
↑1 The Guardian September 18
↑2 www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/labour- executive-gives-backing-to-new-measures-on- antisemitism-1.444751
↑3 All genuine manifestations of the poison of anti- Semitism must be fought vigorously. However,
it accounts for a small very small percentage
of ‘hate crimes’ in this country. The House of Commons home affairs committee published an October 2016 report, ‘Anti-Semitism in the UK’, noting that anti-Semitic hate crimes, however defined, total 1.4% of all racially inspired attacks. In the first half of the year there had been a rise
of 11% in anti-Semitic incidents, compared with 2015. Numerically, this rise was from 500 to 557. However, 24% of the total – 133 incidents in all – were on social media. And social media accounted for 44 out of the increase of 57
↑4 Labour List May 4 2016
↑5 “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

↑6 The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, for instance
↑7 The Guardian September 18
Conference 2017, Conference 2018, Democracy and the Labour Party, Inside the Labour Party, Red Pages

LP conference voting guide: Life-long bans and significant silences

Unfortunately, Momentum’s 2017 Rule change guide for this year’s Labour Party conference simply ignores the controversial motions around the weaponised issue of anti-Semitism. In fact, it is vital that these three motions sponsored by the Jewish Labour Movement are voted down, says Carla Roberts of Labour Party Marxists

This LPM voting guide deals with all rule changes submitted by Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) before conference in 2016. In accordance with one of the plethora of undemocratic clauses in the LP rule book, these procedural motions were then ‘parked’ for almost 14 months before they can be finally discussed by delegates at this year’s conference. (Note, motion 12 from Filton & Bradley, Stoke and Newport West proposes to do away with this crassly anti-democratic rule. Absolutely correct!)

Not every motion published in the Addendum to the 2016 delegate’s report will make it to conference floor. Some have already been implemented by the NEC, some might be ruled out of order by the Conference Arrangements Committee and/or the NEC meeting on September 19. The final, detailed agenda and all motions will only be published a few short days before conference and might well contain a package of clumsy compromise ‘reforms’.

For example, there is talk of the ‘McDonnell amendment’ (no:14 in our list below), being tweaked so that any future candidate for LP leader or deputy leader would need nominations from 10% of the “the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of the EPLP”. Currently, the threshold stands at 15%. The original motion below suggests reducing it to 5% per cent.

In our view, it should be 0%. The relatively tiny numbers of Labour MPs and MEPs should not have any inbuilt constitutional right to thwart the democratic will of our mass membership!

If Corbyn and his allies on the NEC opt for this 10% ‘compromise’, it may be prompted by uncertainty about the political balance at conference – despite Luke Akehurst and the mainstream media suggesting that the left will score important victories in Brighton.

So, the battle lines are clearly draw up, but the actual balance of forces remains blurry. Lukehurst could be reducing expectations on the right with his downbeat comments. This wing of our party is fighting hard to keep its hold over the party apparatus – but its supporters are painfully aware they constitute a minority amongst the grassroots membership. In addition, many CLPs have chosen pro-Corbyn supporters as representatives and have filled their whole quota of delegates with left-wingers. But it’s not a done deal, however. There are also reports of many more CLPs where the right has again cited the “financial burdens” of sending more than one delegate – ‘and, hey, why not send our experienced [read, “rightwing” – CR] comrade X, who represented us in previous years, knows the score at conference…”, etc, etc?

Indeed, if we consider the rule changes as an indicator of the balance of forces in the party, then a clear victory for the left is far from certain. It is remarkable how few progressive, left-wing amendments have been submitted – and how tame they are. Yes, this is partially explained by the 14 months delay, which means we have a snapshot of where our party was over a year ago, not how it looks now. But there’s no doubt that the motions are also a reflection of the fact the left is still playing catch-up with the huge challenges presented to us by the election of a left-wing leader and a mass influx of a left-leaning new membership – some two years after these historic opportunities landed in our laps.

Bluntly put, we are still woefully unprepared and unorganised.

Momentum played a very effective mobilising role in the general election. However, its leader Jon Lansman – and Jeremy Corbyn, for that matter – clearly have no coherent plan for a root and branch political transformation of the Labour Party. The organisation deserves credit for publishing some useful guides to and information on the 2017 conference. (With the partial qualification that its most useful sections have already been covered by NEC member Pete Wilsman’s excellent overview, published last year and which is still available on the website of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy.) Momentum’s generally useful contribution has a very loud, symptomatic silence, however – it has nothing to say on the energetic witch-hunt against the left in the party, under the banner of purging of ‘anti-Semitism’ in our ranks. This finds reflection in three rule changes submitted to conference – and the fact that the National Policy Forum wants to end Labour’s opposition to the occupation of Palestine (see Tony Greenstein’s article in Weekly Worker September 7).

There must be no bowing to this foul provocation against the left of the party, or equivocation on the defence of comrades who are caught in the net of the witch hunters.

Motions to oppose

The Momentum 2017 Rule change guide lists six motions that delegates should support (copied from CLPD and LPM) – and only two that should be opposed. Both of those deal with the anti-Corbyn attempt of removing the category of ‘registered supporters’ (who paid £3 and £25 respectively to have a vote in the leadership elections) and ‘affiliated supporters’ (ie, union members and members of affiliated societies). Of course, LPM also opposes these two motions (there are actually three: the Momentum office seems to have forgotten about motion no 1 from Kingswood). You can bet your bottom dollar that neither of the movers of these motions are concerned about the ‘power of the fully paid up Labour Party member’ – this is all about reducing the power of the unions, Jeremy Corbyn and avoiding the possibility that he could be replaced by a fellow left-winger.

But there are far worse motions among the 23 submitted – and they have been composed in exactly the same anti-Corbyn spirit. Motions 3, 4 and 6, all are clearly motivated by the entirely fabricated “anti-Semitism scandal” in the party. Motion 4 from Finchley & Golders Green is the worst of the lot. It proposes a life-long membership ban on anybody who is deemed to have engaged “in conduct which is motivated by hostility or prejudice based on gender; sexual identity; ethnicity or faith; age or disability; or other personal characteristic”. Such a person “shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member” [our emphasis]. And how can you possibly disprove that you were “motivated by hostility or prejudice”? This proposed rule change is incredibly open to abuse.

Ditto motion no 3, which defines a “hate incident” as “as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation” [our emphasis]. This formulation basically does away with the need for any evidence. Somebody thinks you were motivated by something nasty – bingo, that’s your expulsion letter in the post.

Motion 6 has been submitted by, among others, the Jewish Labour Movement. It uses the same formulations as the two motions above – ie, it is up to the “victim or anyone else” to charge somebody successfully with Anti-Semitism or related crimes. Hard evidence is not needed, feelings will suffice. The person charged is guilty until they can prove their innocence. In addition though, the motions also singles out “anti-Semitism (and ‘cleverly’, Islamophobia and racism) as being above the right to express opinions. Their full proposal would read: “The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions, except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism” [we emphasise the JML’s proposed amendment]. Coupled with the proposal to remove any need for evidence, this is a truly anti-democratic motion and a bureaucrat’s wet dream.

Why is Momentum not saying anything on these truly atrocious motions? Unfortunately, Jon Lansman – who since his coup of January 2017 rules Momentum’s national office like an absolute monarch – has been a willing accomplice in the witch-hunt by the right in the party, in the mistaken belief that by not ‘attacking’ them, they might eventually rally behind Jeremy Corbyn.

Also, Lansman, rather ironically, is politically rather close to the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty when it comes to their definition of Anti-Zionism: basically anybody who criticises the actions of the state of Israel. Lansman famously threw Jackie Walker to the wolves when he had her removed as vice-chair of Momentum and then drew up a constitution which bars from Momentum membership all those thrown out of the Labour Party – for example, for the ‘crime’ of having been or being a member of another political group (like the AWL or Left Unity).

And just like the CLPD, Momentum has, at least for the time being, given up its fight for mandatory selection of MPs. And that despite the fact that the CLPD (with its member Jon Lansman playing a leading role at the time) fought for this rule change for many decades – and eventually with success: From 1980 until the early 90s, a form of mandatory selection of MPs was enshrined in the rule book. Noticeably, no constitutional motion on this subject has been submitted, despite all the debates on this subject in the last few years (though there is a slight chance that some of the contemporary motions submitted might touch on the subject – we’ll know after the NEC meeting of September 19. Also, at least a couple of motions on mandatory selection have been submitted in time for the 2018 conference). This shows how far we still have to go: the left is a long way away from the power it wielded even in the 1980s.

Motions to support

Among the motions that should be supported by delegates are, as already discussed, the so-called ‘McDonnell amendment’ (No 14). We also support motion 9 from Blackley & Broughton Exeter, which wants to do away with the restriction that CLPs can submit either a contemporary motion or a procedural motion, but not both. Motion 11 also wants to give more powers to the CLPs: it proposes that motions submitted are not automatically ruled out of order because they touch on a subject that is mentioned in the long documents produced by the National Policy Forum (to which Tony Blair has outsourced policy-making in the Labour Party). We also recommend a vote for motions 7 and 23, which seek to increase the money from membership fees allocated to CLPs (at the moment, they scrape by with an allocation of a measly £1.50 per member – per year!). There are a couple of other motions that deserve support.

Click here to read our voting recommendation in detail. We will produce more voting guides when the agenda and all motions have been finalised. They will be covered by our daily issue of Red Pages that we will upload online hand out at conference. We are keen to hear from delegates and observers – send your impressions, thoughts, observations and short articles to office@labourpartymarxists.org.uk for possible inclusion in Red Pages.

 

Conference 2017, Democracy and the Labour Party

Voting Guide on constitutional amendments, Labour Party conference 2017

 

  1. Kingswood, referencing: all

Remove the term and entitlement of Registered Supporters from the Rule Book,

Vote against

Our reason: In general, we’re against the Americanisation of politics and would argue for Labour Party members only to have a vote. But clearly, this is an anti-Corbyn attempt by the right to reverse the changes made in the aftermath of the ‘Collins review’ – which was of course designed to curb the powers of the unions.

  1. Socialist Health Association, referencing: Clause IV Constitutional Rules, Page 3

Delete all and replace with:
Labour is a democratic socialist party working for a fairer, healthier and more equal society

Vote against

Our reason: Clause IV deserves to be torn up and replaced – but neither this lame alternative nor a return to the Fabian 1918 version are sufficient. We need a commitment to socialism, the rule of the working class, a democratically planned economy and a democratic republic.[1] Labour Party Marxists have drawn up an alternative formulation along those lines.[2]

  1. Folkestone & Hythe Hendon referencing: Chapter 2, Clause I, Section 4 Membership Exclusions Page 7
    Insert new paragraph:
    Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary action from the following options […]
    Vote against

Our reason: This is a blatant attempt by the right to continue to use the fabricated ‘Anti-Semitism’ scandal to attack and silence the left. It wants to remove the need for evidence to punish trouble makers: the phrase “something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility” is very much open to all sorts of abuse. Guilty until proven innocent.

 

  1. Finchley & Golders Green, referencing: Chapter 2 Clause I, Section 4 Membership Exclusions Page 8

Add a new paragraph D, and restyle current paragraph D as paragraph E: A member of the Party engaging in conduct which is motivated by hostility or prejudice based on gender; sexual identity; ethnicity or faith; age or disability; or other personal characteristic, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member, subject to the provisions of Chapter 6, Clause 1 below of the disciplinary rules.

Amend Section 8 as follows: insert after first sentence: No member of the Party shall engage in conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, or otherwise expressing hostility or prejudice based on gender; sexual identity; ethnicity or faith; age or disability; or other personal characteristic.

Add at end of last sentence: except in cases of conduct which in the opinion of the NEC is racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or otherwise expressing hostility or prejudice based on gender; sexual identity; ethnicity or faith; age or disability; or other personal characteristic.

Amend Appendix 6, Procedural guidelines in disciplinary cases brought before the NCC as follows:

Insert new paragraph 19, and renumber paragraph 19 as paragraph 20:

  1. Where a panel has found a charge of conduct that is racist or expressing prejudice under Chapter 2, 4, D, expulsion is required by the terms of the rule unless the panel is satisfied that an unqualified undertaking in the form required by the NEC has been given, in which case a disciplinary measure short of expulsion may be imposed.

Vote against

Our reason: It is true that the rules make no reference to the kind of sexist and racist behaviour mentioned in the amendment. But this gives way too much power to the bureaucrats, including the issuing of lifelong membership bans. It is – again – very much open to abuse, especially the formulation “which is motivated by hostility”.

It would be much more useful to challenge point B in this section, which has been used, for example, to bar from membership former parliamentary candidates for Left Unity and members of the AWL. It states that, “A member of the Party who joins and/ or supports a political organisation other than an official Labour group or other unit of the Party, or supports any candidate who stands against an official Labour candidate, or publicly declares their intent to stand against a Labour candidate, shall automatically be ineligible to be or remain a Party member.”

Why should members of political groups be banned? Surely, if the party is to become a real party of the class (ie, a united front), we need to welcome all those from different political backgrounds.

  1. Hastings & Rye, referencing: CHAPTER 2, Clause I, Section 8 Conditions of membership Page 9

At the end of Section 8 add: “A member of the Party who in the opinion of the NEC engages in intentional anti-Jewish or racist abuse in public or in writing shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the Party. Where there is a case to answer within objective criteria and the party’s values, a clear dividing line shall be maintained between
a) investigation to establish the full facts; and
b) informed judgment on their political implications. Hatred of Jews shall not be evidenced by non- abusive words or actions regarding Israel or Zionism that are part of legitimate political discourse. If the Party seeks Jewish or other community views or advice on definitions, these shall be sought from all sections of that community as deemed appropriate, and any alternative views that are offered from that community shall be heard.”

Vote against

Our reason: This would appear to be a well-meaning attempt to oppose the entirely fabricated Anti-Semitism scandal in the party and to base any accusations on factual evidence. However, the motion starts from the premise that the party indeed has an “anti-Semitic problem”, which is palpably untrue.[3]

  1. Bury South, Chipping Barnet, Hertsmere, Jewish Labour Movement, Manchester Withington, Streatham, Warrington South, referencing: Chapter 2, Clause I, Section 8 Conditions of membership Page 9.

After the first sentence add a new sentence: A member of the Party who uses anti-semitic, Islamophobic, racist language, sentiments, stereotypes or actions in public, private, online or offline, as determined by the NEC, shall be deemed to have engaged in conduct prejudicial to the Party.

Add at the end of the final sentence after “opinions”: except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism.

Insert new paragraph E: Where a member is responsible for a hate incident, being defined as something where the victim or anyone else think it was motivated by hostility or prejudice based on disability, race, religion, transgender identity, or sexual orientation, the NEC may have the right to impose the appropriate disciplinary options from the following options: [same as D]

Vote against

Our reason: This is supported by the Jewish Labour Movement, an affiliate to the World Zionist Movement, which has played a shameful role in the witch-hunt of anybody in the Labour movement who is speaking out against the role of Israel in oppressing the Palestinians. This already tells you that you should probably oppose without even having to read it (though of course we would urge you to do so). Like motion 3, it puts ‘feeling insulted’ first and removes the need to rely on rational evidence.

But it also puts Anti-Semitism (and ‘cleverly’, Islamophobia and racism) above the right to express opinions. Coupled with the proposal to remove any need for evidence, this is a truly anti-democratic motion.

Their full proposal would read: “The NCC shall not have regard to the mere holding or expression of beliefs and opinions, except in instances involving antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism.”

  1. York Outer, referencing Chapter 2 Clause III, Section 6 Membership subscriptions Page 10

Replace existing Section 6 with: An NEC approved statement shall be produced setting out the basis on which membership fees shall be allocated, including from January 2017 a minimum cash allocation of 10% of each paid up member’s subscription and a guaranteed minimum package of support for all CLPs.

Vote For

Our reason: Currently, CLPs are allocated a ‘minimum’ of a measly £1.50 per member – per year! Clearly, an organisation that encourages local organisation and autonomy should allocate much more.

  1. Cheltenham, referencing Chapter 3 Clause I, Section 4F Party Conference – delegations Page 12

Add at new sentence at the end of Section 4F as follows: Any exceptions to this rule can only be made with the approval of the NEC or an officer exercising the powers given to them by the NEC.

Vote against

Our reason: This amends the following sentence:
“F. All delegates must have been individual members of the Party for at least 12 months at the closing date set for the receipt of names of delegates (see III.1.E below).“

We believe that this entire section should be scrapped. Full members should be given full membership rights from day 1. This amendment further complicates an already bad situation – and allows ‘special’ members to enjoy special rules.

  1. Blackley & Broughton Exeter, referencing: Chapter 3, Clause III, Section 2C Party Conference – submissions by CLPs and affiliates, Page 13

At the start of the last sentence delete “Alternatively” and replace by “Also”

Vote For

Our reason: This would allow CLPs and affiliated organisations to submit one rule change motion and one contemporary motion (at the moment, it’s either one or the other).

  1. Bracknell Burnley, City of Durham, Colne Valley, Solihull, Wealden, referencing: Chapter 3 Clause III, Section 2G Policy documents, Page 13

Amend the first sentence as follows: after “strategy” end the sentence and insert: “Conference has the right to refer back part of any policy document without rejecting the policy document as a whole. Conference shall also consider

Already implemented.

  1. Brighton Pavilion, referencing: Chapter 3 Clause III, Section 2C Conference Motions, Page 13

Amend the first sentence as follows: delete “contemporary” and delete “which is not substantially addressed by reports of the NEC or NPF or Conference.” and replace the latter with “on a matter of policy, campaigning or Party organisation and finance”.

Amend the second sentence: delete “determine whether the motions meet these criteria and”

Amend the last sentence: delete “contemporary”.

Vote For

Our reason: Currently, the Conference Arrangements Committee and the NEC rule out tons of contemporary motions, because they deal with a subject that is mentioned in the long documents produced by the National Policy Forum. We are strongly against this outsourcing of policy-making to an untransparent and unwieldy forum like the NPF. Conference must become the supreme body of the party. The NPF is nothing but a pseudo-democratic device, invented by Tony Blair, of course, and should be abolished.

  1. Filton & Bradley Stoke, Newport West, referencing: Chapter 3 Clause III, Section 2H Constitutional Amendments – debated in year of submission, Page 13

Add a new sub-clause 2I at end: All constitutional amendments submitted by affiliated organisations and CLPs that are accepted as in order shall be timetabled for debate at the first party conference following their submission.

Vote For

Our reason: Definitely. It’s an outrage that rule change motions are only debated at conference in the year after they were voted through at CLP level; NEC motions however, can immediately be discussed at conference.

  1. New Forest East, referencing: Chapter 3, Clause III, Section 2D, Women’s Conference to submit motions to Conference, Page 13

Add a new Section D as follows and re-number rest of Section 2 accordingly:
The annual women’s conference may submit to conference up to two motions not substantially addressed by reports to the NEC or NPF or contemporary motions already put forward as a result of the ballot process.

Vote For

Our reason: At the moment, women’s conference is used mainly as a platform for the likes of Harriet Harman. It has no rights. Of course, a conference of women members should have the right to submit motions to main conference (just like Young Labour should).

  1. Birmingham Hall Green, Cardiff North, Crewe & Nantwich, Devizes South, West Devon, referencing: Chapter 4, Clause II, Section 2b (i) – Election of Leader – nominations required – Page 14

Replace “15 per cent” with “5 per cent”

Vote For

Our reason: This is the so-called ‘McDonnell amendment’, which would make it easier for left-wingers to stand for the position of leader. (Up until 1988, only 5 per cent of MPs were needed to support a nomination.)

We urge delegates to vote in favour, though we actually think it should be zero per cent. Surely, ‘normal’ Labour Party members should have the right to decide who should be their leader. MPs and MEPs should not have the right to act as some kind of system of ‘checks and balances’ on the democratic will of the membership.

  1. Bath (and many more), referencing: Chapter 4 Clause II, Section 2B (ii) Election of Leader – incumbent on ballot paper Page 14

Replace existing 2B (ii) with the following:
Where there is no vacancy, nominations may be sought by potential challengers each year prior to the annual session of Party conference. In this case any nomination must be supported by 20 per cent of the combined Commons members of the PLP and members of the EPLP. Nominations not attaining this threshold shall be null and void. In the event that a potential challenger attains the threshold and that an election will take place, the incumbent (Leader or Deputy Leader) will be automatically included on the ballot paper if they inform the General Secretary in writing they wish to be a candidate in the election.

A version of this is already in the 2017 rule book

After the successful court challenge, this following sentence was added to the 2017 rule book:
“The sitting Leader or Deputy Leader shall not be required to seek nominations in the event of a challenge under this rule.”

  1. Daventry, referencing Chapter 4 Clause III Elections to National Committees – voting system, Page 16

Amend introductory paragraph as follows: Delete “the conduct of” (after “other matters relating to”) and Insert: “which shall be conducted using the Single Transferable Vote system with, where appropriate, constraints to ensure gender balance” at the end of the paragraph. ,

Vote against

Our reason: In general, single transferable vote can indeed be more democratic, as they allow minorities to get elected. However, in this politically fluid situation, the current first-past-the-post system allows the left to campaign to get a whole slate of candidates elected, whereas under STV the left would be more likely to take only a majority. Also, who decides what the “constraints” in terms of gender balance are, for example?

  1. Caerphilly, referencing Chapter 4 Clause II, Section 2C (vi), Election to national committees and officers – entitlement to vote, Page 14

Delete the words “affiliated supporters and registered supporters” and insert the words “Voting shall be cast in a single section of fully paid Labour members”

Vote against

Our reason: See motion 1 and 18: In general, we’re against the Americanisation of politics and would argue for Labour Party members only to have a vote. But clearly, this is an anti-Corbyn attempt by the right to reverse the changes made in the aftermath of the ‘Collins review’ – which was of course designed to curb the powers of the unions. See also motions 1 and 18.

  1. Huddersfield, As above

Replace existing sub-clause with: Only paid up members of the Labour Party are entitled to vote in elections for the Leader and Deputy Leader of the party.

Vote against

Our reason: See motion 1 and 17

  1. Ashfield , referencing: Chapter 7 Clause III, 1A and Clause 1V,1A Rules for CLPs – Affiliated Organisations Page 28

Amend as follows: In sub-clause A, after “subsections of branches” insert “including retired member sections/associations”

Amended 1A would read:
1. Organisations may affiliate to the Party at constituency level if they fall within the following categories:
A. trade unions or branches thereof affiliated to the Trades Union Congress or considered by the NEC to be bona fide trade unions affiliated to the Party nationally. Where provided by the structure of an affiliated organisation, subsections of branches retired member sections/associations may affiliate separately at the discretion of the RD(GS) of the Party in agreement with the appropriate authority of the affiliated trade union Consequential rule change to support the rule amendment – payment of affiliation fees.

Amend Clause IV, 1A as follows: after “branches of trade unions” insert “retired member sections/associations of trade unions”

Vote For

Our reason: Of course, this could be open to abuse by an unelected union bureaucrat ‘representing’ their retired members section.(Remember the Socialist Labour Party’s inaugural conference, when the 3,000 card votes of a phantom organisation of retired miners trumped the couple of hundred of individual members present, making sure Arthur Scargill got his way?[4])

But the left should try to make these organisations real – just because somebody retires from work does not mean they are not interested in the affairs of their union anymore.

  1. Blackpool North & Cleveleys, referencing: Chapter 11, Clause V Young Labour Rules, Page 39

Add at the end after Sub-clause 3, a new Sub-clause 4 as follows: Young Labour shall have its own constitution and standing orders, to be determined by the Young Labour AGM.

Vote For

Our reason: We agree with much of the motivation by the movers: “The rule would clarify how Young Labour works, increase its autonomy and stop the organisation being beholden to Labour Party staff’s interpretation of the rulebook.
 Much of the current rules simply say that the NEC will determine how Young Labour works as it sees fit, with no concrete rules to govern the organisation
.”

  1. Enfield North, Leyton & Wansted, referencing Chapter 12 Clause IV, Local Campaign Forums, Page 44

Delete all and insert new sub-clauses as follows:

  1. The membership of the LGC shall consist 75% of delegates from the local CLP(s) and 25% from affiliates. At least 50% of delegates from each group shall be women.
  2. Additionally, CLP campaign co-ordinators shall be ex officio members of the LGC. Any sitting MP, AM, MSP, MEP, PCC and/or PPC may attend their LGC. Where a Co-operative Party council exists for the area concerned and they sponsor candidates in local elections they shall be entitled to appoint a member to the LGC.
  3. The LGC shall meet at least four times per year with representatives of the Labour group where one exists.

Consequential amendments – elsewhere replace LCF by LGC.

Vote For

Our reason: The Local Campaign Forum itself was an anti-democratic effort to abolish the much more democratic Local Government Committees (and District Labour Parties), which used to write the local Labour Party’s manifesto and exercised some democratic control over Labour Party councillors (who these days write their own manifesto).

Currently, LCF’s are chiefly run by Labour Party councillors, with the local CLP executives making up the rest. There is almost no input from normal members, let alone much transparency.

  1. Leicester South, referencing Chapter13, Clauses XIV and XVII Reporting to and consulting with the Party, Page 51

Replace existing Clause XIV, Section 1 with the following:
1. Members of the Labour group are entitled and encouraged to attend meetings of their constituency party and appropriate local party units. The group standing orders shall specify how the group and council leadership including the City Mayor and Deputy City mayor shall report to and consult with the appropriate local party on a regular basis; the leader and deputy leader of the Labour Group, or other Group officer as determined by the Group shall be members of the LCF and its Executive Committee. The party expects the group leadership including the City Mayor and Deputy City mayor to give a minimum of reports and hold a number of policy consultations within the year, to keep the party informed of budgetary and service delivery issues, and other policy areas.

Replace existing Clause XVII, Section 1 and 2 with the following:
1. Labour groups on joint boards, committees, on regional bodies and on local government associations shall adopt appropriate rules and standing orders in consultation with the party’s Local Government Unit and with the prior approval of the NEC.

  1. The rules contained in Chapter 13 are minimum requirements for the operation of Labour groups and the conduct of Labour councillors including the City Mayor and Deputy City Mayor. Due account must be taken of the resources for member development and the guidance approved by the NEC and of such advice as may be issued from time to time by the NEC.

Vote For

Our reason: The only change here is the addition of “City Mayor and Deputy City Mayor” to the list of those required to “consult” with members. Of course, these should not be able to act as little Bonapartes, but be subject to democratic control by the party.

This so-called “consultation” is however incredibly vague and in reality just means a councillor or MP has to give a monthly report to members, who can question them but have no way to hold their representatives to account or sanction them.

This whole rule should be torn up and dramatically rewritten to make sure councillors, MPs and all other elected Labour Party representatives come under the democratic control of party members.

  1. Richmond (Yorks) referencing: Appendix 8 Clause III, 1A Membership subscriptions – portion allocated to CLPs, Page 83

Reasoning:
Given that far too small a percentage of the membership fee is allocated to Constituency Labour Parties, we call on Labour Party NEC to increase the share of the subscription that is returned to CLPs to enable more and better campaigning by constituency parties and branches Thus the amendment would read as does the current statement but the figure of £1.50 per member would be increased to £2.50, (and the example given would be changed accordingly.)

Vote For

Our reason: An annual allocation of £2.50 per member to the CLP is still a joke. Even 10%, as in motion 7, is too little. But even a little more is better than the current status quo of £1.50 per member per year.

[1] http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/three-clause-fours/

[2] http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/alternative-clause-4-proposed-by-labour-party-marxists/

[3] http://labourpartymarxists.org.uk/anti-zionism-does-not-equal-anti-semitism/

[4] http://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/535/arthur-scargill-and-the-end-of-a-fantasy/