Reclaim the Labour Party

Liz Davies and Christine Shawcroft, candidates for Labour's NEC Constituency Section

Our campaign for election to Labour's NEC will press our Government to deliver the changes for which people voted for on 1st May 1997: for an enhanced welfare state, investment in public services, and the redistribution of wealth.

As councillors representing some of the poorest wards in the country, we've seen the impact of Tory policies on working people. We know the scale of the challenge facing our Labour Government. The massive improvements needed urgently in health, education, housing, and transport cannot be met unless we redirect resources, through progressive taxation, from the rich to the poor.

We want to see increases in the state pension, a return to free higher education and a higher minimum wage. The proposal for a minimum of £7,000 a year for an adult in full-time work is a profound disappointment. Labour promised to abolish poverty pay and promised workers effective rights to trade union representation and recognition. So far, the Government has failed to deliver the substance of these commitments, yet the Party itself has remained silent.

If the NEC is to do its job, it cannot act as a mere rubber stamp for the Government. Changes in the Party constitution mean that most NEC members will owe their places to the patronage of the Party leadership. If elected, we will be accountable not to the Millbank Tendency but to ordinary Party members. We're proud of the pluralism and diversity of our team. It stands in marked contrast to the enforced conformity preferred by some uncritical supporters of the leadership.

We are campaigning to ensure that all members have a meaningful voice in the formation of Party policy. Consultation exercises must be genuine: too often, we've been rushed into decisions without any chance of real participation in informed discussion; too often, the opinions of CLPs and unions have been ignored. We will report regularly to CLPs and encourage invitations to attend local meetings and answer questions. We will work to make decision-making transparent. We will nurture debate and defend dissent.

Our Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance has come together in Liz Davies response to an exceptionally challenging moment in our Party's history. Will our Party remain an independent, democratic movement with its own voice and priorities, or will it become merely an echo-chamber for the Government? A successful Labour Government will be one that listens and responds to voices from below and outside. Our task in the coming campaign and on the NEC will be to make those voices heard.

If the Party ceases to be the champion of working people, of organised labour, and of the poor and the excluded, then it will cease to be an effective instrument for social change, and will lose its moral and strategic compass. The campaign for the NEC is therefore about the soul of the Labour Party and the direction of the Labour Government.

Our message to every Party member is: this election is your chance to make a difference; this is your chance to make sure our aspirations towards social justice and our ideals of equality and democracy are voiced inside the Labour Party and heard by those outside. We ask you to do more than just vote for the six candidates in our alliance. We ask you to make every effort to convince every Party member you know to do likewise, and through meetings, leaflets, and letters to the newspapers, help us place the arguments of the Grassroots Alliance before Party members across the country.

Remember, the stronger the vote for the candidates of the grass-roots alliance, the clearer the message to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

Liz Davies and Christine Shawcroft are standing with Andy Howell, Cathy Jamieson, Mark Seddon, and Pete Willsman as the candidates of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance.

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