Challenges over ruled out motions

Five delegates raised points of order on the CAC report, that included notice that 95 motions had been ruled out for not fulfilling the “CAC criteria”.

The organisations who motions were ruled out – CLPs and affiliated socialist societies – were notified by email, and given till 6pm last Thursday to appeal by email.

Going by the CAC report, not a single one of those appeals was successful.  (Last year there was a successful appeal to the CAC on the ‘two child cap’ motion, after a campaign by Mainstream).

Three of the points of order were challenges to ruling out: Michael Gaylard (Horsham CLP) challenged on council housing, Bill Eyres (SERA) on water, and Rathi Guhadasan (SHA) on the NHS – including dumping the Palentir contract.

Even though Mainstream had raised some fuss in advance of conference about the ruling out of the water motion, the Labour Campaign for Council Housing about the housing one, and the SHA about the NHS, in the event only a few dozen delegates voted against.  This is always a difficult challenge – right at the start of conference, and delegates have not seen the text of the motions being discussed, and only a few hours between the result of appeal and taking it to conference floor.  We need a reform of this system, and an end to this openly factional CAC.

Where are the reference-backs?

The chair of the session told one delegate making a point of order that they would be able to make a reference back – but when?  The vote was taken later in the session on the NPF report, with no-one called to move their references back, or any further mention.

What should happen is that reference backs are now taken during the policy debates.  The Delegates’ Briefing for 2026 says:

“All the reference backs that have been successfully submitted will be presented within the relevant daily CAC Report. During the applicable debate, the Chair will call the delegate from the organisation that has submitted the reference back to move it from the podium. The delegate will have one minute to explain:

a. Which precise section of the document they wish to refer back; and

b. Briefly outline the reasons they wish to do so.

The Chair will then ask for speakers on the Reference Back”

This is because party rules say, “ Conference has the right to refer back part of any document without rejecting the policy document as a whole”.

But the Conference Arrangements Committee report addendum says (page 13) “The following reference backs were accepted and sent to the NPF”. “Sent to the NPF”? Already, without a vote?

A reference back from a CLP or other organisation is about giving the conference the chance to vote.  A vote for the reference back means that conference is telling the NPF that it got it wrong on that aspect. It is not for the CAC to decide whether or not to send a reference back to the NPF, but for conference!  Is the CAC going to decide which motions are passed next?

We hope this is just a mistake by the CAC in their report addendum, and that delegates from the listed CLPs will be taken in the policy debates to move their references back and a conference vote taken (in accordance with the Delegates’ Briefing and the party rules). Watch for this in the policy debates.