“Will Annual Conference be an opportunity for Labour’s Leadership and Cabinet members to reconnect with members and trade unions, to listen to concerns and forge a different path that would gain popular support? If only.”
By Rachel Garnham
Labour’s Annual Conference comes at an interesting time – just over a year into a Labour government, elected with a huge majority of MPs but shallow popular support, in fact less votes than Labour won in 2017 and 2019. Labour has now dropped to a pitiful 20% in the polls, trailing behind Reform; Starmer has a net unfavourability rating of -47%. This was entirely predictable, and the response – pandering to Reform, more austerity, sucking up to Trump – is quite obviously making things worse, alienating voters including Party members – the very people needed to build support for Labour in our local communities.
So, will Annual Conference be an opportunity for Labour’s Leadership and Cabinet members to reconnect with members and trade unions, to listen to concerns and forge a different path that would gain popular support? If only. Decisions made in recent weeks and months, and in organising the Conference, show no sign of lessons being learned from poor choices to date:
- Despite strong campaigns and rulebook support for a standalone Women’s Conference, the last few years have had a one-day Women’s Conference tagged onto the start of Annual Conference – while increasingly inadequate as time for policy-making was eaten into by tedious panels and besuited speakers, it was at least an opportunity for women members and trade unionists to discuss key issues and make decisions on what women want from a Labour government. This year it has been cancelled, using the Supreme Court ruling as an excuse, but with seemingly no attempt to reintroduce, recreate or provide a safe space for women to come together and organise. This will make for a poorer start to Conference, and likely fewer women present overall.
- As we have come to expect the right-dominated Conference Arrangements Committee has, on spurious grounds, ruled out many left motions that would plot an alternative course. In particular, many CLPs submitted motions calling on the government to put in place comprehensive sanctions on the Israeli government to address the genocide in Gaza. This is, of course, by any usual definition ‘contemporary’. It also clearly meets the criteria of not being substantively addressed by the National Policy Forum report as CLPs set out in detail in our appeals. But the topic has clearly been ruled out to avoid discussion that would draw attention to the government’s inadequacy and its standing by while thousands are slaughtered, infrastructure destroyed and ethnic cleansing openly discussed.
- The rule changes being brought by the NEC, despite opposition from our left CLP reps, further undermine members’ voice in Party structures. Most blatantly, the election for members of the National Policy Forum switches from One Member One Vote to being elected at Annual Conference – handing voting rights from the many to the few, with not all CLPs even represented. This is a blatant stitch-up to ensure Leadership-preferred candidates are elected. Even if there was confidence that elections at Conference were free and fair this would be less democratic – and every year CLPD received multiple reports of how ballot papers have gone missing or been miscast or delegates advised how to vote when they shouldn’t be. The Leadership clearly has no interest in listening to grassroots members or trade unions about how it could change course and rebuild support for our Party. Other rule changes remove members’ rights in relation to local government and electing the Regional Party Chair, and make it more difficult to set up Young Labour branches. And this may not be the end of the story- the NEC could come back with more and delegates will need to be watchful that rights are not further eroded.
Despite these stitch-ups on Women’s Conference, rule changes and contemporary motions, it will be impossible for the Leadership to silence critics’ voices on what could be a lively fringe – it will be interesting to see how the soft right of the Party coalescing around Powell’s Deputy Leadership bid are willing to distinguish themselves from the hardline neo-liberalism of Starmer and his allies. And the left will be there to put the case for stronger sanctions against Israel to end the genocide in Gaza, for ‘wages not warfare’ to fund public services and stop pouring money into the war machine, and for an agenda that stands up for migrant rights and multiculturalism and takes action to resist the rise of the far right rather than pandering to Reform. CLPD will be doing all we can to support delegates to raise these issues on Conference floor.
- Rachel Garnham is Co-Chair of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD). You can follow her on Twitter/X, and CLPD on Facebook and Twitter/X.
- You can find information about CLPD fringe meetings at this year’s party conference here.
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