The motions to go into the priorities ballot today are now published, at https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/2026-Addendum-to-CAC-1-Contemporary-Motions-FINAL-1.pdf 

With the CLP motions inspired b(y Mainstream and SERA) on public ownership of water all ruled out, there is now nothing at all on the scandal of profit-driven water and sewage (where regional water companies borrow from their own investors to pay dividends to those same investors, while routinely using rivers and streams to dump sewage, and with “catastrophic failure’ of a regional water supply now – since July – in the second highest level of likelihood in the government’s national risk register).

With the CLP motions on council housing (inspired by the Labour Campaign for Council Housing) all ruled out too, there is far less to debate, but there are references to housing in several motions – bizarrely split across four sections, so delegates cannot simply choose ‘housing’ as a topic.  The topic is split across ‘housing and homelessness’,  ‘local authority borrowing’, ‘HMOs’, and ‘reindustrialising our communities’.

It is actually this last section – already due to be prioritised by the unions – where the stronger text can be found: ending right to buy, and “cancelling council housing debt, freeing resources for building and maintenance”.  The annual target in this motion for building or acquiring social rent homes is lower than in the LCCH motion, but it does refer to “direct employment” (a weaker version of the LCCH DLO clause).  But as this section is already being prioritised by unions, there doesn’t seem to be much on housing that CLP delegates can gain from anywhere else in the ballot.  (It is down to Unite delegates to make sure this text goes into the composite).

The section ‘Insourcing and Public Ownership’ includes an ASLEF motion to “bring rail freight back in-house by expanding publicly owned rail freight”, important, but again already prioritised by unions.

Section 27, ‘public services’ includes a Doncaster North motion with a good defence of migrant workers and leave to remain, but in practice actually in a slightly weaker version than that passed in Composite 13 last year. 

That same section contains a motion from the GMB that contains a jarring note referring to “reducing support staff pensions savings to fund teachers’ pay” though does rightly “reject forced academisation as a failed education policy”.  It remains to be seen which bits of this end up in the composite for this section.

Section 8, ‘Proportional Representation’ includes the largest number of CLP motions – more than two dozen calling for steps towards PR. This should be prioritised too. The ‘violence against women and girls’ section also has some important motions.

The ‘Middle East’ section contains several motions for sanctions on Israel, including a full arms embargo, and for a ban on “all trade that assists Israel’s military actions in Gaza or its unlawful. presence in the occupied Palestinian territory”.  Worth supporting, but again, slightly weaker than last year’s policy passed in the emergency motion.

Section 33, ‘tech sovereignty’ includes a line from Exeter “to call on the Labour Government to exercise the 2027 break clause and end the NHS’s reliance on Palantir”.  

Section 34 ‘Rebuilding our Economy for Working People’ includes a CWU motion including “single status of worker” but that refers to “a new ownership and governance model for Royal Mail, with democratic public control” but no public ownership. 

In the same section Unite’s motion, after some ‘buy British’ nonsense, then refers to “introduction of a wealth tax” which is useful, but still weaker than last year’s Composite 14, which was passed.

Overall – following the CAC antics, the choices in the priorities ballot for CLP delegates are poor this year, but so too are the offerings from unions.

A significant worry is buried deeply in the CAC report 1, where it says “the following reference backs were accepted and sent to the NPF”. Reference backs are defined in the rule book (chapter three, III.2.G) as “Conference has the right to refer back part of any document without rejecting the policy document as a whole.” Conference has the right to vote – and indeed with the shenanigans of motions ruled out it is one of the last chances CLPs have to raise policy directly on conference floor. It looks like the CAC is breaking party rules again in an attempt to set a presidency that conference no longer gets the chance to vote. The whole point is that conference has the chance to vote that the NPF got it wrong on a specified point, not just ‘submit’ the reference back to the NPF without a vote, like the ruled out motions that disappear into that same ‘referred to NPF’ black hole. This must be challenged.