“We raised concerns about the political direction of the Party hemorrhaging party members, which is bad not just due to the losses in finances or of canvassers, but because Party members connect the Party to the communities it is there to represent.”
CLP representatives on the Labour Party’s National Executive Committee Jess Barnard, Gemma Bolton and Yasmine Dar report back from the NEC meeting on 20th May.
Summary
• In an unprecedented move, it was declared that the Party will no longer be informing the NEC of membership numbers.
• The left and most trade union reps voted against the cancelling of equalities committees and conferences which are stipulated for in the Party rulebook, losing 15-14 on a move to withdraw the paper, and 16-12 on the paper itself.
• Despite opposition from the left CLP reps, Women’s Conference has been cancelled for the next two years, reducing women’s involvement in policy making, due to ‘security risk’, ‘political risk’ and ‘legal risk’ relating to the exclusion of transgender women from positive action that benefits women.
• With 19 votes, the NEC voted to exclude transgender women from positive action measures relating to women, including All Women Shortlists, Women’s Officer positions, being included in gender-based quotas, National Women’s Committee, and Women’s Conference. 12 members of the NEC including the left CLP Reps and representatives of key trade unions did not vote for this.
• Left CLP reps challenged Ministers on a range of policy issues including policing, housing policy, and migration.
• Left CLP reps raised issues relating to organisational issues including Campaign Improvement Boards and the ruling out of motions at CLP level.
• Labour List has reported that the Party is experiencing financial woes.
Deputy Leader’s Report (Angela Rayner)
Angela Rayner discussed the disappointing election results and highlighted some of the government achievements to date including the Employment Rights Bill, free breakfast clubs, the saving of Scunthorpe’s steel industry, the Renters’ Rights Bill going through parliament, and the £1 billion spent on the affordable homes programme.
Jess Barnard raised the question of whether the Government would seek to repeal the Conservative Act which has seen police powers increased and used against both peaceful protesters and trade unionists. In addition, she also referred to a recent report stating that data from 119 councils shows that half didn’t greenlight a single council house in the first 6 months of the Labour government, and just 6% of the homes approved were for social rent.
Angela Rayner responded by saying that on police powers, the Government is trying to strike the right balance, while on council housing, the spending that has been announced and the reforms to Right to Buy will yield results in the long-term. However these figures show how far a government would need to go even just to arrest the decline of social housing, and it is clear that the current developer-led approach, which is still leaving Right to Buy broadly intact, is not delivering the housing our communities need.
Cabinet Report (Bridget Philipson)
Bridget Philipson discussed reforms to children’s social care including efforts to tackle profiteering in the private sector, child poverty, apprenticeships and education.
Jess asked her about her comments on the Supreme Court ruling, in which Philipson said not only that the Government accepts the ruling but that it meant that transgender women cannot use women’s toilets, a move which clearly undermines transgender women’s dignity and puts them at risk. Philipson re-stated the position, also saying that the Government will be setting out a draft conversion practice that will be trans inclusive.
Gemma Bolton raised the importance of taking back control of academies and re-introduce accountability in schools. Philipson said that most Academy leaders have no concerns about Labour’s reforms in this area.
General Secretary’s Report (Hollie Ridley)
When questioned on the absence of membership data in recent reports, it was asserted that the Party staff will no longer be reporting its membership data to the NEC, the governing body of the Party, which is completely unprecedented. This is supposedly due to ‘leaks’, a bizarre assertion because it is a common and healthy practice for NEC representatives to report the numbers to our membership and we received no request to treat this information as confidential.
In response, we raised concerns about the political direction of the Party hemorrhaging party members, which is bad not just due to the losses in finances or of canvassers, but because Party members connect the Party to its core values and the communities it is there to represent.
Jess raised concerns about anti-democratic measures being used to silence members at CLP level, with regional directors ruling motions out of order or preventing CLPs moving motions on particular topics, and she made the point that Labour should not be silencing members and should be able to accept challenges when the government gets things wrong. We did not receive a clear response to her request to see any guidance around the prohibition of motions.
Gemma noted that the overwhelming majority of recent tweets made by the Prime Minister were about immigration, playing into the hands of Reform by validating their narrative.
Yasmine asked how the next trench of Campaign Improvement Boards had been decided and asked for a paper to come to the NEC soon on this, which the party appeared to agree to but we were yet to get a timeframe for this update. Since they have been instituted, we have had concerns about Campaign Improvement Boards as there is growing evidence that they are being used to target councillors perceived to be politically opposed to the leadership, and to allow regional offices to exercise huge control over councillors.
Chair’s Report (Ellie Reeves)
The Chair discussed the Party’s disastrous local elections results, saying that Reform are now our main electoral opponents. Reeves, the party Chair, acknowledged issues with the current functioning of the National Policy Forum and that on the work of Policy Commissions, some Ministers are not currently engaging with it adequately, hindering the work.
We would also add that the issues go further – CLPs are currently unable to contact NPF Reps directly, the Joint Policy Commission is defunct, and NPF Reps can’t report back on what other commissions are doing so there is no real democracy or accountability in the process.
Supreme Court and Women’s Conference
This paper proposed cancelling Women’s Conference for two years and excluding transgender women from all structures and quotas set up as affirmative action policies to favour women. Regrettably, this item was scheduled at the end of the agenda and only very limited time was allocated for it to be debated. This appeared to have been done to the tactical advantage of those most in favour of the paper. Left CLP reps challenged this practice in the meeting. Alongside this, NEC reps did not received the papers for Tuesdays meeting until Friday afternoon, giving us very little time to consider a decision which could have huge legal ramifications for the party.
There was an initial effort to force through the proposal to exclude trans women with very little discussion, by one of the PLP representatives. This was thwarted 15-14 with opposition from the trade unions allowing a discussion to continue, however when the proposal itself was put to a vote, it passed. With 19 votes, the NEC ultimately voted to exclude transgender women from positive action measures relating to women, including All Women Shortlists, Women’s Officer positions, being included in gender-based quotas, National Women’s Committee, and Women’s Conference. 12 members of the NEC including the left CLP Reps and representatives of key trade unions did not vote for it. This exclusion, which not only demeans transgender women but will significantly reduce their ability to engage with the democratic process, was justified on the basis that to do anything else would open the Party up for legal action (see official Party wording below).
The abolishing of women’s conference was justified on the basis of a ‘security risk’, ‘political risk’ and ‘legal risk’ relating to the exclusion of transgender women from positive action that benefit women, although it is hard to ignore the factional opposition from allies of the current leadership to any democratic equalities structures overall, as the following paper and discussion around it confirm. Only 5 people voted against this, which is disappointing given the crucial role that Women’s Conference plays in giving women a voice in decision-making in the Party.
Jess emphasised a complete opposition to the Supreme Court ruling but focused on the legal issues as political points were restricted by the chair, pointing out that the EHRC’s ‘interim update’ recommending the exclusion of transgender people is not the same as ‘guidance’ and that taking this decision could leave the party open to litigation from trans people victim of unfair and disproportionate discrimination. Gemma pointed out that under the Supreme Court ruling, transgender women can only be excluded from women’s spaces if such an action is deemed to be a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, which is very questionable in this case given the low representation of transgender people in public life in the UK. She also asked whether the Party might in fact be opening itself up to litigation by transgender members, a suggestion which was rejected out of hand. Yasmine emphasised the need for more time to discuss and not to rush this decision through, and other NEC members questioned the lack of consideration for any safeguards protecting the rights of transgender Party members.
Review of Equalities Committees and Conferences
Regrettably, the NEC voted narrowly not to implement the equalities committees and conferences stipulated in the Party’s rulebook following the Democracy Review in 2018. This affects BAME, Disabled and LGBT+ Party members, while women members are seeing Women’s Conference cancelled for two years (see below). The arguments given were based on cost (accompanied with some costings that appeared dramatically inflated) and the involvement of BAME, LGBT+ and Disabled members was counterposed to the goal of winning elections, a premise we do not accept. On the contrary it is overwhelmingly clear that failing to include the voices of marginalised groups in decision-making in the Party is having catastrophic consequences for our electability.
One NEC member associated with Labour to Win claimed that the rulebook’s stipulations for greater involvement of marginalised groups was nothing more than the factional machinations of the left under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which was quite an extraordinary statement given the huge consensus and support these reforms have enjoyed from disabled, BAME, and LGBT+ Party members. Gemma quite rightly denounced the paper as ‘death sentence for equalities conferences’, while Yasmine asked how the Party can justify sidelining Equalities Conferences and Committees that are in the rulebook.
It was positive to see most of the trade union representatives vote against the cancelling of these structures. A vote on withdrawing the paper altogether was narrowly defeated 15-14 while the vote on the paper itself was 16-12 in favour.
Addendum – Official Labour Party position on ensuring compliance with the law as a result of the Supreme Court judgment
“As the governing board of the Party, the NEC was presented with recommendations to ensure compliance with the law as a result of the Supreme Court judgment. NEC members are required to ensure the Party meets its legal and financial responsibilities.
The NEC agreed that the Party’s positive action measures as they relate to women will be interpreted as applying to biological women only in compliance with the Supreme Court judgment. The NEC agreed there would be a wider review of the Party’s positive action measures to ensure the Party continues to support underrepresented groups in compliance with the Equality Act. It was also agreed that the National Women’s Conference would be postponed pending the outcome of that review.
The Labour Party is clear that everyone in our society deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. The Party will work closely with individuals and local parties to implement the necessary changes with sensitivity and care.”
- Jess Barnard, Gemma Bolton, Yasmine Dar are all CLP representatives on Labour’s NEC. They were reelected in 2024 with the support of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance.
- You can follow Jess, Gemma and Yasmine on Twitter/X.
Labour should take the lead given by the co- op . No association with Israel.