Campaign for Labour Party Democracy CLPD’s Annual General Meeting will take place at 11.30am (till approx 4.30pm with break for lunch) on Saturday 23 February at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, in Central London.
This will be CLPD’s 40th AGM and will be opened by Kelvin Hopkins, who is CLPD’s Parliamentary Labour Party liaison officer. The AGM will consider strategy and tactics for increasing Labour Party internal democracy in the forthcoming year, pass resolutions and elect the new executive committee. There will be a Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) report from Christine Shawcroft and CLPD secretary Pete Willsman will report on our activities over the past 12 months.
Other speakers include Chris Mullin taking a stroll down CLPD’s memory lane, Ann Pettifor giving economic analysis of the crisis of capitalism and Jon Ashworth MP, recently elected as the member for Leicester South, looking ahead to how Labour can win in 2015. Current issues and resolutions, as well as Party rule change proposals, will be debated with plenty of time for contributions from the floor.
The AGM is open to non CLPD members who can attend as participating observers and you can join on the day.
CLPD was formed in 1973 by a group of rank-and-file activists, with support from about ten Labour MPs. The first President was Frank Allaun. The main motivation for the Campaign was the record of the Labour governments in the sixties and the way that Annual Conference decisions were continually ignored on key domestic and international issues. The immediate cause was Harold Wilson’s outright rejection in 1973 of the proposal to take into public ownership some 25 of the largest manufacturing companies, covering the major sectors of the economy.
CLPD’s first demand was therefore for mandatory reselection of MPs so that they would be under pressure to carry out Conference policies. This demand was achieved in 1979/80 through the overwhelming support of CLPs and several major unions, especially those unions where the demand for reselection was won at their own annual conferences (e.g. TGWU, AUEW, NUPE).
CLPD also sought to make the Leader accountable through election by an electoral college involving MPs, CLPs and TUs. Hitherto Labour leaders were elected by MPs alone. This demand was achieved in January 1981.
CLPD also promoted a range of reforms to give Labour women and black members greater representation within the Party. The main demand for a woman on every parliamentary shortlist was achieved over the period 1986 – 1988.
In addition CLPD also promotes non-democracy issues, such as the significant extension of public ownership, defending the welfare state and the first-past-the-post electoral system.
The major focus of CLPD’s work in recent years has been to win back power for the rank-and-file, which has been surreptitiously transferred to the centre under the pretext of “modernisation”.
Graham Day on said:
The link at the start is broken, should be Campaign For Labour Party Democracy…
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Manzil on said:
Would I be allowed to come along and heckle her on behalf of Labour Briefing (Official)?
I remember going to a CLPD fringe at Labour’s 2006 conference in Manchester. They did a very good spread, which came in handy when trying to ignore Kelvin Hopkins.
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Strategist on said:
“CLPD also promotes non-democracy issues, such as …defending… the first-past-the-post electoral system.”
Eh? So it believes in Labour party democracy, but not actually democracy, then?
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uncle albert on said:
Possibly off topic – Is anyone within Labour able to explain Labour’s downing-grading of membership of the Socialist International? As described in Ann Black’s account:
“The NEC agreed to downgrade Labour’s membership of the Socialist International to observer status, in view of ethical concerns, … ”
http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/02/report-from-labours-january-executive/
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treborc on said:
Defending the welfare state, nice to hear if only I could believe it.
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Manzil on said:
uncle albert,
Protesting the (eventual) expulsion of the Egyptian National Democratic Party, maybe?
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uncle albert on said:
Can’t really imagine they’re capable of such self-reflective humour.
I suspect a motivation even more unacceptable to Labour’s ordinary members – hence the secrecy. They won’t be wanting any internal bust-ups/activist walk-outs/defections in the run-up to Eastleigh. We may have to wait until March for an explanation.
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Matty on said:
A comment at Left Futures on this:
“Allegedly the German SPD is trying to found a new International in Rome this May after pulling all its funding from Socintern last year.”
MattyQuote text Reply
Manzil on said:
Oh? That’s intriguing.
So the SPD has gone all left-happy and will be forming the Committee for a Socialist International, the United Secretariat of the Socialist International, or the Socialist International Tendency?
Or this is their equivalent of their PSE rebranding and we’re about to see the Progressive International of Socialists and Democrats so that Italian liberals can sign up without feeling unwelcome.
ManzilQuote text Reply
uncle albert on said:
Matty,
It’s the “ethical concerns”, mentioned by Ann Black, that are intriguing me.
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David Ellis on said:
[Note from tony: "David Ellis", given that you were explicitly told that you are absolutely not welcome here, why do you persist in trying to post here? Doesn't it seem a bit obsessive to you? We don't want you here so please just go away (I changed your posting name to "David Ellis", just so people are clear)]
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Red Deathy on said:
Hmmm…
http://www.neues-deutschland.de/artikel/807483.sozialdemokraten-gruenden-neue-internationale.html
&
http://www.progressiveallianceconference.org/progressive-network.html
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Manzil on said:
#12. Ahahahahaha. I swear I didn’t know about that.
Score! Proof that base cynicism is totally justified! Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands and Partito Democratico hand in hand, the 21st century people’s front.
Still probably gonna be too left-wing for Progress’ tastes.
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