Taken from a report-back to a CLP in Greater Manchester

The applause was huge. Just imagine if he had actually won a leadership contest. (This is the policy platform that should have been given in a leadership contest, and debated in the party, with other candidates).

All the news media I had heard that voting on the way to conference was trailing the ‘national care service announcement. But the way he introduced it was so much better than the trails: “I want to speak directly today to our care workers… I am sorry that my profession has let down yours for so long.” (The later announcement of a new collective pension scheme for care staff, that has been pushed for by UNISON, seems to be part of this).

That a Labour leader is now at least rhetorically reviving Labour’s previous opposition to privatisation is a change, and a change very much for the better. The problem is that Andy Burnham’s verbal disavowal of Thatcherism – and by implication the Blairite capitulation to it, of which he was part – is not accompanied by any immediate policy for reversal – much of it is ten years away. It does create an importantly different situation for Labour though, I think.

I gradually realised that at every point, ‘democratic control’ was interpreted only as “a stronger role for mayors and local leaders” – though of course county-wide mayors rather than councils were a Tory initiative to reduce levels of democratic accountability. I am disappointed that our programme for democratisation doesn’t go beyond that to local democracy – even simple things like every school having a governing body again.

There were a number of points where there was an evident contrast between what Andy Burnham was saying and what conference had just voted for: He said “we will reform Right-to-Buy” – just 24 hours after the conference had voted not to reform it but abolish it altogether. (The difference is that ‘abolish removes RTB on all council houses; the intended reform would remove it only in those houses not yet built). Last years’ conference voted to call for “a wealth tax on the richest to raise revenue for public services”. And 48 hours before Andy’s speech, conference had again voted for a wealth tax. But he announced that the care service would be funded not through wealth tax, but by reduction over time in the value of the state pension. That morning conference had voted to “clearly and publicly reject forced academisation as a failed education policy”, but the was no mention of the academies problem – which is a perfect example of the point Andy makes of how privatisation has taken control further from local communities.

There were also contrasts with what conference had not been allowed to discuss (ruled out motions and disappeared references-back): His reference to “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era” and the “need to restore stronger democratic control over our housing stock” was great, but of course our motion on means of making that a reality had been ruled out. On water, he said “water is a symbol of what has gone wrong with Britain – a service where the shareholders never lose and the public never win, from which some have syphoned out easy money while the public picked up the bill for the sewage in our seas.” Great, but the motions on water passed by dozens of CLPs – and ruled out for conference – called for “the Government to urgently return water in England into public ownership”; His commitment was very different, that he “will start a 10-year journey to a very different water system”.  He will repeal the “ban on public ownership of water companies”, give new powers to mayors, give warning to companies, and ultimately “consequences will be clear… including taking back control or public ownership.” (Polls show that 82% of the public are for public ownership of water – not a ten year plan that might or might not lead to public ownership at the end). His announcement about exploring options on the EU, including re-joining, was met with huge applause but the NPF references-back pointing out how poor the party’s own NPF had been on the issue had disappeared from the agenda.

On education, reference to Youth Services was well received, but the policy to “rebuild a system of comprehensive education” consisted only of “parity between academic and technical”, with no reference to academisation or the wholesale privatisation of SEND that has taken place in the past 20 years, bleeding local authority SEND budgets into the pockets of hedge funds.

The announcement of a move towards PR had a mixed response, but more positive than negative. There will be a mixed response in our CLP. It was the only reference to conference policy though: “Conference, in past years you have voted twice to support electoral reform. I hear you, I agree with you and today I am announcing a new national commission on electoral reform.”  Unfortunately, it appeared motivated by ‘stability’, cross-part working, and perhaps coalition government – rather than by democratisation.

Concerningly, a speech over an hour long made no reference to workers’ rights or implementing the Employment Rights Act (despite the vote for those in the emergency motion), and nothing at all on the climate emergency.

Despite these shortcomings, it was probably the best-delivered leader’ speech for decades. A lot of people seemed genuinely enthused. We should use this fact – as far as we possibly can – to get our members more active and to recruit new members, and getting our branches more active in their communities supporting strikes and local campaigns.

I have drafted a leaflet we can use to urge people to join Labour when we are door-knocking.