Download LLI bulletin for Yorkshire and Humber Labour regional conference, 1-2 March 2025, here.

Labour had pledged to raise overseas aid from 0.5% of GDP (to which it was cut by the Tories) to 0.7%. Instead, Keir Starmer says, it will cut it to 0.3%, in a “lite” version of Donald Trump’s axing of USAid.

Starmer says this is to pay for increased military spending. In the first place, we want arms sent to Ukraine, but that does not necessarily mean more military spending.

In the second place, the government cannot in fact estimate future budget figures so accurately as within 0.2%.

In the third place, taking the money from aid is arbitrary. Large increases in tax on wealth and capital gains are needed anyway, for the NHS, for local councils, and for schools.

As John McDonnell says: “to cut spending on tackling famine & poverty in the poorest areas of the world will cost lives”.

According to Labour List, a JL Partners poll, conducted last September for the British Foreign Policy Group, found that only nine percent of Labour voters backed further cuts to the aid budget.

Islington North Labour Party has been reconstituted, seven months after the general election and much longer after it was suspended in effect, but not officially, by cutting off its access to party membership data and systems. It met on 19 February 2025, after much discontent about the Region being slow to restore the CLP’s ability to function.

According to Labour List, right-winger Alex Gardiner was elected secretary but said: “There’s been understandable strong feeling in the local Party as so many had long-standing loyalty to the former Labour MP, so we want all the factions within the Party to unite from now on”.

A few members of Islington North were expelled for signing Jeremy Corbyn’s nomination papers and similar before the July 2024 general election. Some 70 more Corbyn-supporting members quit just before general election day. There are now four ex-Labour “independents” (three of them from Islington South, not North), in a joint group with the Greens on the council.

The “independents” have run candidates in two council by-elections in Islington North, without success. They have an office in the constituency, in the shape of Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency office. Corbyn’s office has organised two public meetings (“People’s Forums”) in the constituency since July 2024, but as we understand it those who have quit in Islington North have no regular “party”-type meetings. Or if they do, they are not publicised.

Let’s hope the “official” welcome to “all factions” to join the reconstituted Islington North proves good.

The number of disciplinary allegations looked at by members of Labour’s National Executive Committee rose from 125 in 2023 to 138 last year.

That is still a significant decrease from 2019-2022, when cases were above 300 a year, let alone on 2015-6. The proportion of allegations involving antisemitism was 28% in 2024, 37% in 2023, and 70% in 2022.

In 2024, around a third of cases resulted in expulsion, suspension, or a referral to the Independent Complaints Board or National Constitutional Committee. Another third resulted in a formal warning or a reminder of conduct.

Just under a third resulted in a “reminder of values” or no further action.

Of 105 members currently suspended, 19 had been suspended for more than 18 months.

Much more information at: https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/202501-Disciplinary-Report.pdf

See also https://www.annblack.co.uk/nec-update-january-2025/

https://labourlist.org/2025/01/labour-antisemitism-disciplinary-cases-nec-2024/

The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy AGM is 9 March 2025, online. Register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/clpd-agm-registration-1145481950349. Labour Left Internationalists supports CLPD’s efforts for a more democratic Labour Party, and hopes to be able to work with CLPD at Labour conference 2025 particularly on the priorities ballot for conference motions.

Labour Party supporters were shocked and angered at reports in the Guardian of 6 February about a Facebook group called UK Migration Updates that claims it is run by Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party but was using Reform colours and linking to right-wing content from GB News and the Telegraph.

On the other side, we have new pressure from Lord Maurice Glasman’s “Blue Labour”. Glasman accepted a personal invite from Donald Trump for Trump’s inauguration, and was the only Labour figure there. In an interview with currently-out-of-favour Trumpist Steve Bannon Glasman hailed the inauguration as ‘an incredibly important day”, called “progressive” thinking “woke capitalism, and denounced it as a cancer in the Labour Party. Glasman says that “the only place to build a house now is on the left side of MAGA square”.

Glasman is not in Starmer’s inner circle – he denounces Rachel Reeves – but he claims that Starmer’s Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney “is one of ours, we love him”. Dan Carden, a formerly Corbynite Labour MP who resigned from the front bench to back a ceasefire in Gaza, has started a Blue Labour group of MPs.

Glasman started Blue Labour in 2009, but retreated after outcry over his 2011 call for English Defence League people to be drawn into the Labour Party.
Only through inactivity by the “progressive” majority can screwball racists take hold of sections of the Labour Party.

We need to campaign for democracy in the labour movement. For the removal of the Labour whip from Glasman (he sits in the House of Lords). And for unions to campaign on the policies of supporting refugees which most of them have.

Islington South CLP passed this motion on 19 February 2025.

We call on Wes Streeting as Health Secretary to withdraw his support for the ban on puberty blockers for trans young people.

As on many medical questions, randomised controlled trials are impractical and unethical here. But puberty blockers have been in use for many years now, and international evidence shows that puberty suppressing hormones are a safe and effective way to temporarily pause a young person’s puberty, giving them time to consider their options for transition.

Rather than honouring Labour’s manifesto commitment to “remove indignities for trans people who deserve recognition and acceptance”, the ban strips trans young people of their bodily autonomy, undermining important medical principles, such as Gillick Competence, in favour of upholding the Conservative approach of politicising the lives of trans people.

The Cass Review did not go so far as to recommend a ban on puberty blockers for trans young people.

Also, the CLP’s LGBT Forum invited Pride in Labour to speak at a Forum meeting on 26/2/25.

Resources at https://transcend.org.au/resources/evidence/ may be useful for debate in other CLPs, especially https://transcend.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Transcend_AusPATH_Pubert-blockers-evidence-brief_2024.pdf

We call on the Labour Party leadership to reverse its decision to authorise the building of a third runway at Heathrow airport and not to authorise any further airport expansion. We call for public investment instead in improved rail services.