The following motion was passed with all votes for except two abstentions at Sheffield Heeley Constituency Labour Party on 28 July.

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1. This CLP condemns the Labour Leadership’s position in choosing not to attend picket lines. We particularly condemn the order to the Shadow Frontbench Members not to attend the picket lines of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT).
2. This CLP supports the actions of many Labour MPs, Labour Councillors and Labour Party Members in attending the RMT and Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) picket lines on 27th July 2022.
3. The CLP strongly condemns the decision of the Labour Leader to sack Sam Tarry, a Shadow Minister for Transport after he joined an RMT and TSSA picket line on 27 July 2022. We do not accept the Labour Leader’s comments in the print and broadcast media on 27th and 28th July 2022 that Sam Tarry was making up party policy “on the hoof”, especially considering the confused and contradictory statements made by the Labour Leadership in the media regarding our Party’s policy on nationalising of the railways made on Monday 25th July 2022.
4. This CLP further believes that the actions of the Labour Leadership in respect of the above has damaged both Members and public’s confidence that our Party is a government in waiting.
5. This CLP affirms our previous Resolution of 26th May 2022,
   overwhelmingly passed, regarding the announcement of the RMT ballot result to take industrial action and our resolution to :
   – to send a message of support to the RMT, including inviting a speaker to address a future CLP meeting and asking the union what support we can offer.
   – to actively support any strike action through attending picket lines with our banner, discussing donating to a strike/ hardship fund if the RMT establishes this and by encouraging solidarity from our member
   – to call on our MP to show solidarity including attending picket lines.
   – to call on our party nationally to support this struggle including any strike action
6. This CLP demands that the whole party rallies around the rail workers – and other workers in struggle – by supporting strikes, not hiding away from them and punishing people for supporting them.
7. This CLP Resolves:
   a) To call on all Labour MPs, including our MP, Louise Haigh, to support the RMT and other striking unions in rail and other industries, and join future picket lines;
   b) To send and publish a message to the rail unions supporting their struggles and their strikes;
   c) To send a copy of this motion to the Labour NEC General Secretary and NEC CLP Representatives.

A comrade has sent us this model motion they are putting forward in their Labour Party. Please consider using or adapting for your Labour Party ward or CLP (or union branch). To let us know you have, or for help, email team@momentuminternationalists.org

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We condemn Keir Starmer’s order not to attend picket lines and his sacking of Sam Tarry as one of the party’s transport spokespeople after he joined an RMT / TSSA picket line on 27 July. The whole party should be rallying round the rail workers and other workers in struggle: supporting demands for pay rises at least matching inflation and to defend and improve conditions and jobs, and supporting strikes – not hiding away from them and punishing people for supporting them. We call on all Labour MPs [including ours] to support the striking unions in rail and other industries, and join their picket lines. We will send and publish a message to the rail unions supporting their struggles and their strikes.

By Mohan Sen

In 2020, the Forward Momentum grouping won every member-elected seat on the National Coordinating Group of Labour left organisation Momentum. It defeated the Momentum Renewal slate linked to the office faction that destroyed Momentum’s democracy in 2017.

In July 2022, Forward Momentum-rebranding Your Momentum won 14 seats to 15 for Momentum Renewal-successor Momentum Organisers (for a briefing on the two, see here). Momentum Organisers got over 50% of first preference votes, to just over 45% for Your Momentum.

Labour Left Internationalists ran three candidates in the London and Eastern region (Abel Harvie-Clark, Maisie Sanders and Andy Warren), who got 74 first-preference votes between them, behind the 111 of the last successful candidate. (For some of our campaigning and materials, see our Twitter.) The turnout and the score for the left were low because Momentum’s numbers and activity have declined, and in part also because of the rushed and undemocratic way the election was run.

The LLI candidates raised class-struggle, internationalist socialist ideas and proposals that no other candidates did.

Forward Momentum came to office in 2020 by criticising the conservative, undemocratic and destructively unpleasant politics and culture institutionalised after the office-coup of January 2017. But it operated its own exclusions; Momentum remained office-dominated, and intervened only weakly at the 2021 Labour conference. In this election the Your Momentum candidates gave the impression of not knowing what to advocate.

Momentum Organisers advocated a focus on defending the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs and leftish councillors. Some better initiatives that Momentum has pursued half-heartedly, like promoting policy for Labour Party conference and deciding to hold a conference of its its own, may get downgraded.

Right up to their defeat in 2020, the office-linked faction that later became Momentum Organisers engaged in witch-hunting and slandering of critical-minded leftist opponents. This time they had quite a few new people involved, and refrained from such behaviour. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely they will make Momentum more open, let alone democratic.

The ideas Labour Left Internationalists promoted in the election, including mobilising the organisation’s members and resources in support of strikes and replacing bluster about “community wealth building” with campaigning to stop and reverse council cuts, will only become more important.

The last two Labour Party conferences, in 2019 and 2021, passed policy for public ownership of energy (in motions calling for a “Socialist Green New Deal”).

This year a motion specifically on public ownership of energy is going to conference. It has already been passed by Eastleigh Constituency Labour Party in Hampshire, and is being proposed to a number of others. See the model motion here. Considering proposing a version of it in your Labour Party.

Christian Brookes from Eastleigh CLP explained:

“The cost of living crisis is driving millions of working families into poverty and energy companies are raking in profits from the British people’s hiked energy bills. Meanwhile, our planet is facing a 1.5°C rise in temperatures compared to pre-industrial levels, while Britain experiences it’s first ever 40°C temperature.

“Our CLP strongly supported this motion to control these companies by putting energy back into public ownership. At our meeting members passionately expressed their disgust at energy companies’ greed and ignorance of people’s issues; the motion was passed with a huge majority.”

This initiative comes at a crucial time, immediately after the heatwave reminded us yet again of the urgency of serious action to tackle climate change – and as energy companies’ profits soar and fuel bills are set to leap again. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has just violated conference policy by rejecting public ownership of energy (and water, and even the railways…) On the other hand the TUC has just come out for public ownership, reflecting the hard work activists have done pushing this issue over several years.

We must insist the Labour leadership respects and implements party conference policy, and fights for serious policies to defend the living standards and interests of, and shift wealth and power towards, the working class. That must include public ownership of the energy sector.

You can help build the fight:
• Get your CLP to send the motion to conference (deadline for submission, Thursday 15 September, 5pm).
• Mandate your delegates to vote in favour at conference.
• Whether or not it’s your CLP’s motion to conference, pass a motion in favour of public ownership modelled on this one.

Get in touch to let us know if you’ve passed the motion, or to get help, or to get a speaker on these issues: team@momentuminternationalists.org

Some suggested wording below on Ukraine for Labour conference 2022. We didn’t submit wording on Ukraine to the Momentum “policy primary” earlier in 2022, because text formulated then would be likely to be out of date by the time local Labour Parties debate motions for conference, usually in July, August, or September. The deadline for submitting motions is 15 September.

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Support Ukraine, support its labour movement

Conference notes
1. That Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to tens of thousands of civilian deaths; nine million fleeing Ukraine and ten million internally displaced; horrendous human rights abuses by the Russian army; and a global food crisis.

Conference believes
1. That Russia’s war, waged by a power that oppressed Ukraine for centuries and only lost control of it in 1991, is imperialism in an extremely crude and brutal form.
2. That for the sake of democracy and anti-imperialism globally, Ukraine must win.
3. That Western governments have not given Ukraine enough weapons to defend itself effectively. Meanwhile the Tory government:
– Has accepted few refugees and failed to support them;
– Opposes cancelling Ukraine’s external debt;
– Has actively promoted legislation undermining workers’ rights in Ukraine.

Conference resolves
1. To declare strong solidarity with Ukraine’s people and labour movement against Russian imperialism, and with Russia’s anti-war movement and independent labour movement.
2. That Labour will campaign for:
– Self-determination for Ukraine, with any peace deal determined by Ukraine’s people and government, not foreign powers;
– Increased military support for Ukraine, while opposing increased UK defence spending;
– Safe routes, sanctuary and equality for refugees fleeing Ukraine and all other conflicts and persecution;
– Cancellation of Ukraine’s debt;
– And in solidarity with Ukraine’s labour movement and left, supporting their fight against the Ukrainian government’s and employers’ attacks on workers’ rights and for a just reconstruction; promoting Ukrainian unions’ fundraising appeals; encouraging CLPs to invite Ukrainian labour movement speakers.

(250 words, not including title)

From the Labour Campaign for Free Movement. This is one of three motions originating in the vicinity of Labour Left Internationalists adopted by Momentum as priorities for Labour Conference 2022. The orher two are on the police and. on public ownership of energy.

Migrant solidarity: towards a humane, internationalist and socialist immigration policy

The government’s inhumane immigration policy is illustrated by its treatment of Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, Windrush scandal victims, and everyone crossing the Channel; the Nationality and Borders Act’s assault on the right to asylum; and the brutal Rwandan deportation scheme.

Attacks on migrants are attacks on the labour movement. Making migrant workers precarious diminishes our power to resist.

Conference applauds PCS trade unionists considering striking against dangerous maritime “pushback” plans.

Labour must build solidarity and campaign for migrants’ rights and an antiracist, internationalist alternative.

Labour will work in power, and campaign in opposition and at the grassroots, to:

Repeal the Nationality and Borders Act and all anti-migrant legislation;

Reject immigration systems based on numerical caps, minimum income/wealth requirements, or utility to employers;

Guarantee safe, legal routes for asylum seekers, day-one rights to work, education and social security, and expand family reunion rights;

Abolish “no recourse to public funds”, NHS access restrictions and all Hostile Environment policies;

Replace Settled Status with an automatic Right to Stay;

Introduce a simple process for all UK residents to gain permanent residency;

Grant all UK residents equal voting rights;

Close all detention centres; end all immigration raids, detention, and deportations, including racist “double sentencing”;

Support workers refusing to implement deportations, Hostile Environment measures and pushbacks;

Level up domestic workers’ rights to equal other workers;

Reenter Europe’s free movement area, and pursue free movement agreements with other countries, including in all future trade deals, with the goal of equal free movement for all.

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This is at the word limit – 10/10 words in the title, 249/250 words in the text – so if anything more were added, the whole submission would be ruled out. The deadline for conference motions is 15 September. Most CLPs will decide their motions in July, August, or early September.

Activists in eleven Nottinghamshire CLPs are moving motions on the following lines:

“This CLP applauds the inspirational national rail strikes carried out by the RMT and calls on the Labour Party leadership to give strong and unequivocal support to this action.

We will keep our members informed of further strike action and encourage them to show solidarity by visiting picket lines and rallies such as [insert local details].

We applaud our MP for showing support by [call on our MP to show support by. etc., as appropriate] visiting RMT picket lines, and resisting reported calls from the party leadership to avoid such visits”.

London and Eastern region:

1. Maisie Sanders
2. Abel Harvie-Clark
3. Andy Warren

In other regions, and for transfers after voting for LLI, we recommend voting for Your Momentum rather than Momentum Organisers. It’s an STV election.

Our political platform for this election:
momentuminternationalists.org/2022/06/17/back-labour-left-internationalists-candidates-for-momentum-ncg-june-2022

LLI candidate Andy Warren is a firefighter and Fire Brigades Union activist in London. He told us:

“With the huge class fight that is starting now, in terms of prices and wages and the wider social crisis, we all know the Labour Party is doing an awful job of supporting workers. That’s something Momentum could make a huge difference with – through its own campaigning, and through pushing Labour – but it has to reorient to do it.

“In the fire service we face a potentially very serious struggle in the not too distant future to defend our right to collective bargaining, which the Tories have made it very clear they want to demolish,. We’ll need support from an engaged and mobilised Labour left.

“I also want to emphasise the question of internationalism. Ukraine has sort of fallen out the media window, and Labour is quite happy to let Johnson dominate the agenda on it. By failing to back Ukraine, sections of the left are contributing to this. We need a left that is absolutely clear that when a small country is harried by a much bigger imperial bully, we stand against that.

“LLI can’t be more than a small minority on the Momentum NCG, but there are many issues we can work with a range of people on, despite disagreeing on other issues. It will take us being there to raise many issues and struggles that are crucial.”