Author: dlandmj

Template motion on Stop Trump Coalition

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Below both a 133-word version and a 435-word version to adapt for your union branch or CLP.

Abridged version

We note:

Trump’s far-right authoritarian drive in the USA and international

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has initiated a state visit for Donald Trump.

He has also announced a plan to cut international aid to boost military spending

We believe:

Starmer should cancel the state visit.

It is wrong to increase military spending. Aid to Ukraine is no justification. So far that has totalled £7.8 bn over three years, which is 0.09% of UK economic output, and only 4.7% of military spending in those years.

The workers’ movement are the key to defeating the right.

We will:

Support/ invite a speaker from the Stop-Trump Coalition

Campaign against the state visit.

Mobilise our members against far-right mobilisations.

Continue to fight for rights for women, LGBT+, Black people, and migrants at work and in our communities.

Full version

We note:

Since Trump’s inauguration, he has reinstated off-shore drilling, attempted to end birthright citizenship, sacked many thousands of federal employees, ended the US ’s overseas aid programmes, sided with Putin over Ukraine, backed ethnic cleansing in Gaza, and pardoned the 6 January rioters.

Senior officials of the most powerful government on Earth now give Nazi salutes from the stage of political rallies. For millions of working-class Americans, especially women, girls, LGBT+ people and people of colour, his government poses an existential threat. It also threatens the working class internationally as we have seen from US policy on Gaza, Ukraine, threats to annex Greenland and Panama, and aid (oxygen tanks, HIV and malaria medications, and other medical supplies amounting to at least $240 million remain stuck at ports or storage facilities around the world.)

Globally the far right is growing. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and Trump’s (far) right hand man intervened to support the racist AfD in Germany. He is proposing to fund Reform in the UK and is lobbying for fascist leader Tommy Robinson to be released from prison.

We further note:

Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer has initiated a state visit for Donald Trump.

He has also announced a plan to cut international aid to boost military spending

We believe:

Starmer should cancel the state visit.

It is wrong to increase military spending. Large standing armed forces are by their very nature hierarchical, conservative, democracy-threatening forces. The British armed forces are no longer apt to seize colonies across the world for a British Empire. But their recent big operations have been to help the destructive US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. Aid to Ukraine is no justification for increased military spending. So far that has totalled £7.8 bn over three years, which is 0.09% of UK economic output, and only 4.7% of military spending in those years.

The workers movement are the key to defeating the right. Every piece of progress that workers can win– from tackling sexual harassment at work to higher pay for disabled workers — forms a bulwark against the far right. Unions could play a role in educating people against the far right, mobilising to defend migrants and other vulnerable communities, and restoring the idea that politics is not about division and hate, nor is it about worshipping at the feet of billionaires, but building a society of equality and justice.

We will:

Support/ invite a speaker from the Stop-Trump Coalition

Campaign against the state visit.

Mobilise our members against far right mobilisations.

Continue to fight for rights for women, LGBT+, Black people, and migrants at work and in our communities.

Sack Mandelson as UK ambassador to USA

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This CLP notes that:
• UK Ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, interviewed on ABC News on 2 March, called for “Zelenskyy (to) give his unequivocal backing to the initiative that President Trump is taking” and said that “Ukraine should be the first to commit to a ceasefire and defy the Russians to follow”.
• The Armed Forces Minister Luke Pollard replied that Mandelson’s demands are “not government policy” and that the war would stop if “President Putin stopped his illegal and unprovoked aggression”.
• Russia’s invasions and war aim for the subjugation of Ukraine, which they regard as an illegitimate nation with no right to self-determination.
This CLP resolves to:
Condemn Peter Mandelson’s statement.
Call on the UK Government to replace Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to the US.

McSweeney vs Labour local government

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Extracted from Richard Price’s article on Labour Hub

Seven months ago, Morgan McSweeney was hailed as an electoral genius. The Party is currently polling lower than it has at any general election since 1918.

Depending on the source, the Starmer government’s loss in popularity in its first six months is the steepest or second steepest of any incoming government since the Second World War. What’s worse, this doesn’t feel like a temporary blip of the kind that previous Labour governments bounced back from, but already a long-term trend.

While the leadership might think of councillors as its soldiers, there are 6,500 of them and, outside of the small number of identifiable left councillors, there is a much larger group with centrist politics but who aren’t joined at the hip with McSweeney’s project. Councillors have been at the sharp end of public anger not only over the Party’s lamentable performance on Gaza but also with winter fuel payments, the two-child limit, ‘trousergate’, retreats on green policies and recent Reform-chasing announcements on asylum and immigration.

Since October 7th 2024, something like 150 councillors have resigned from the party, some in ones and twos, others in groups. Nor has it been wholly about Gaza. In January this year, 20 councillors in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, resigned the Labour whip, citing not only Gaza but also the two-child limit, winter fuel payments and the treatment of WASPI women.

On top of that, many Labour councillors are staring down the barrel of losing their seats in May’s local elections. Councils face a huge funding gap – £2.3bn in English councils alone. Large-scale cuts will inevitably rebound on Labour councils, no matter how much their problems are blamed on the Tories. If the present trend of opinion polls continues, splits are bound to open up within the ruling bloc, and that will include a significant body of councillor opinion, in the same way that elected mayors and the Scottish leadership have put some distance between themselves and High Command.

Other leaders facing sharp polling reversals would circle the wagons and appeal for Party unity. But Morgan McSweeney is determined to root out not only genuine opponents but even potential opposition. This is demonstrably destroying the Party on the ground. The vast majority of members won’t campaign for candidates that they have not been able to choose democratically. Silencing opposition won’t alter that fundamental truth. On the contrary, it will compound it.

The right to choose local government candidates from an adequately-sized panel isn’t a left issue as such, but one shared by many members in other wings of the party and in affiliated unions. The hour is already late, but what we need is a genuinely broad-based campaign to restore local Labour democracy.