Better late than never
Better late than never
John Stewart reports from the London Labour Party Conference.
According to the Greater London Labour Party rule book, the GLLP conference should be held on the first weekend in March, the date decided by the Regional Executive Committee (REC), and the format agreed by an elected Standing Orders Committee. The first GLLP conference for three years was held in mid-June, the date chosen by regional General Secretary Terry Ashton without reference to the REC, and without the Standing Orders Committee meeting. The postponement prevented members taking positions the leadership disagreed with in the run-up to the local elections and London Mayor referendum.
As delegates arrived they were given a ballot paper to decide which two topics (out of the seven in the resolutions book) would be debated and then went to workshops to discuss bland policy documents.
In the plenary session, London Labour Party Chair Jim Fitzpatrick MP was forced to apologise for mistakes on the documents listing nominees for the London executive where some candidates were somehow left off. Apart from this small hiccup, of course, he assured us everything was fine. Geoff Martin, of London Unison, moved reference back of the chair's report and when this was refused Christine Shawcroft of Poplar and Canning Town CLP formally challenged the chair's ruling. A two-thirds majority was needed for the challenge to succeed and, when the result came in, it couldn't have been closer: 65.59% voted to support the challenge (86.7% of trade unions and affiliated societies).
Later Leonora Lloyd, left candidate for the chair, got 25 % of the vote against Fitzpatrick. The left lost Dorothy Macedo and Jeff Slee from the regional executive, Christine Shawcroft and Barry Camfield retained their places, Raj Jethwa was elected for the first time. In the National Policy Forum elections Lorraine Monk, of the soft-left, and Maggie Cosin, of the hard-right, were elected.
Terry Ashton presented the 1996 accounts, promising the 1997 accounts would be available soon. When GLLP vice-chair Val Stansfield invited questions Teresa Pearce asked why the accounts show £288,052 income as "unallocatable". Terry Ashton claimed the financial records "such as they were" had been destroyed by a former staff member. This is an astonishing allegation and begs the question why nothing had been done about it. His report descended further into farce when Jeff Slee asked him why the conference had been postponed from its original date in March. Ashton waffled pitifully and the conference hall rang with mocking laughter.
When we finally got some debate there were large majorities for resolutions defending the right of conference to meet at least bi-annually and submit motions, and for the right of any London Party member to seek nomination to be Labour's candidate for London Mayor in an OMOV ballot. The last was passed with only two votes against. All the divisions in the conference clearly showed the trade unions to be to the left of the CLPs -- a new situation for many of us.
Unfortunately the way the conference was organised allowed no time for debate on racism, cuts in the fire service and the Government's decision to privatise London Underground. Overall the conference confirmed that the Blairites are in control of Party structures and are adapting those structures to shore up their positions. But they don't have the support of a majority of London Party members on all areas -- where the left works hard it can still win victories on key votes.
previous article · July '98 index of LLB · write to LLB · LLB home page · next article