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wording on Ukraine to the Momentum “policy primary” earlier in 2022, because text formulated then would be likely to be out of date by the time local Labour Parties debate motions for conference, usually in July, August, or September.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.”

Hi all,

Labour Left Internationalists needs your supporting nomination to get its candidates into the contest and onto the ballot paper in Momentum’s National Coordinating Group elections.

Nominations have to be submitted via a personalised weblink (emailed to you) before 23:59 on Wednesday 22 June.

Candidates’ details appear on the website, and you get a chance to click to nominate them, only once their “self-nomination” has been vetted and approved by the Momentum office staff. That’s happening only on Tuesday afternoon 21 June, so time is short.

Voting will be 28 June to 6 July.

• What political basis is LLI standing on?

In a sentence – “We’re standing in the Momentum National Coordinating Group (NCG) to advocate a Momentum which mobilises, visibly and regularly, to support class and social struggles – strikes like the rail strikes and long-running food couriers’ dispute, protests like against the Police Bill.”

More at https://momentuminternationalists.org/2022/06/17/back-labour-left-internationalists-candidates-for-momentum-ncg-june-2022/

• Where on the Momentum website do I nominate?

You can’t go straight there. You’ll get an email from Team Momentum, subject line “OPEN: Nominations for NCG election”, with a personalised link for you to make nominations.

• What if I can’t find that email?

Search your email inbox, and look in spam. If you still can’t find it, maybe your Momentum membership has lapsed, maybe there’s a glitch in Momentum’s system, maybe you never got round to joining Momentum.

Go to

https://my.peoplesmomentum.com/

to check your membership. You need to remember the e-address you signed up with. You can get a password reminder if you have forgotten your password. You don’t need to remember your Momentum membership number.

If you’re still stuck, go to

https://join.peoplesmomentum.com/

and rejoin or join. You can name your own level of financial contributions, so this isn’t expensive.

• Should I put in my nominations now, or wait until Wednesday?

You can re-use the personalised nominating link you’re sent as many times as you like.

The LLI candidates’ self-nominations have been posted up as available for supporting nominations, in London and Eastern anyway.

If you used the personalised link on Monday, you can go back again now to change your nominations.

The leadership factions, Momentum Organisers and Your Momentum, had plenty of time to prepare, so will easily get their quotas of 20. By nominating LLI candidates you can widen the debate in the election.

Don’t leave it so late that if you forget on Wednesday, or have IT difficulties then, it’s too late to mend that.

• Where do I find Momentum’s info about the NCG elections?

NCG elections 2022

• Why is this important?

Momentum’s activity has dwindled over the last couple of years, as has indeed the activity of the whole Labour left. But there are still about 20,000 people out there getting the Momentum emails, even if they don’t have functioning Momentum local group meetings to attend.

LLI did quite well in that “electorate” in both the policy primaries this year and the democratic-reform ballot. There is an audience for LLI’s ideas. This NCG election is by STV, so our chances are better than were those of Momentum Internationalists in 2020.

Many, not just on the left or in the unions’ rank and file, but among union leaders and in the Labour centre and soft-right too, are visibly dissatisfied with Starmer. They are quiet now. At some point, and we don’t know when, they will start to kick back.

Sustaining and building a profile and a presence for LLI in these difficult times is important to prepare for that, just as we would have done much better in the Corbyn years if we had been able to sustain a stronger class-struggle internationalist left, operating at rank-and-file level, in the difficult years before 2015.

• Why is this all such a rush?

Evidently the two big factions in the top layers of Momentum – Your Momentum (YM, what was Forward Momentum in 2020) and Momentum Organisers (MO, what was Momentum Renewal then) knew in advance about this NCG elections, and had their operations planned. We didn’t have that inside knowledge.

The rules about supporting nominations were published only on Friday 17 June.

Please use your social-media networks to spread this call for nominations, including to Momentum members who won’t agree 100% with LLI but do want a broader contest of ideas in this NCG election.

• Is LLI saying there’s no difference between those two factions?

No. It’s an STV election. We advocate transferring to Your Momentum, and voting Your Momentum in regions where LLI has no candidates. But if you want an election with some open contest of ideas, wider than the rather code worded exchanges between YM and MO, put in your nomination to get LLI on the ballot.

Thanks,

Labour Left Internationalists

Labour Left Internationalists

Struggles – Internationalism – Socialism

We’re standing in the Momentum National Coordinating Group (NCG) to advocate a Momentum which mobilises, visibly and regularly, to support class and social struggles – strikes like the rail strikes and long-running food couriers’ dispute, protests like against the Police Bill.

The NCG is now being be elected by Single Transferrable Vote and in eight smaller regions. That means every vote can make a difference in help electing our candidates and changing Momentum.

We produced a longer program for the last NCG election, when we were established as Momentum Internationalists, in 2020: momentuminternationalists.org/what-we-stand-for

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Our demands and ideas: short version

We stand for:

Struggle

• A Momentum which mobilises, visibly and regularly, to support class and social struggles – strikes like the rail strikes and long-running food couriers’ dispute, protests like against the Police Bill.

• Properly campaigns for demands like a £15 minimum wage, living sick pay for all, public ownership and repeal of all anti-union laws, including by campaigns to push motions in local Labour Parties, fights for conference policy, references-back of NPF reports

• Block new council cuts and win return of funding cut since 2010. “Community Wealth Building” is not enough, and not “building socialism”

• Fight all forms of oppression and bigotry. Curb the police

• We support Proportional Representation as more democratic.

Internationalism

• Champion migrants’ rights and free movement

• Consistent internationalism: support workers everywhere and liberation struggles from Ukraine to Palestine, including by visible mobilisation for demonstrations

• Fight British nationalism

• Resist re-erecting barriers between Britain and the EU27; push towards reversing Brexit

Socialism

Socialism is not being a bit more left-wing than the Blairites, or more state activity.

Socialism means the people, led by the working class, organising to liberate ourselves from exploitation, creating a new society of common ownership and democratic planning to meet social needs.

Campaign for public ownership of energy companies and public expropriation of the banks and high finance – though those do not yet constitute socialism.

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Our demands and ideas: longer version

We stand for:

Struggle

Working-class struggle: we want a Momentum which mobilises, visibly and regularly, to support class and social struggles – strikes like the rail strikes and long-running food couriers’ dispute, protests like against the Police Bill.

Working-class demands: Momentum should much more consistently campaign to popularise demands to address the economic crisis, build the labour movement and develop struggle and solidarity – like a £15 minimum wage, living sick pay, public ownership and repealing all anti-union laws (working with existing campaigns – e.g. Free Our Unions – wherever possible and looking for opportunities to establish new campaigning networks). Momentum’s Trade Union Network should be reoriented and relaunched on these lines.

Step up the fight in Labour: campaigns to push motions in local Labour Parties, fights for conference policy, references-back of NPF reports, campaigns against the undemocratic bans and exclusions

Local government: Block new council cuts and win return of funding cut since 2010. “Community Wealth Building” is not enough. With councils getting only half the funding they did in 2010, they’re often barely able to provide basic services, let alone “build socialism” in their areas!

Fight oppression: We are socialist feminists. We fight for LGBT rights – that includes the T! We fight all forms of racism, antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry. Serious anti-racist politics must criticise and challenge capitalist institutions like the immigration system and the police. We are proud to be among the authors of the migration and policing motions Momentum has adopted for Labour conference this year, and want to make those struggles central.

We support Proportional Representation as more democratic.

Internationalism

Migrants’ rights and free movement: The platform of the Labour Campaign for Free Movement, which our candidates support, needs aggressive promotion in Labour, throughout the labour movement and beyond.

Consistent internationalism: Fostering solidarity with the struggles of workers and the oppressed worldwide, from China to the US, Sri Lanka to Sudan, Chile to Russia. Support for peoples struggling against oppression and for self-determination everywhere, from Ukraine to Palestine to the Uyghur region.

Fight British nationalism: Oppose increased military spending, Trident and NATO. Corporations leeching our public services are bad because they’re capitalist, not because they’re foreign.

Lower borders, don’t raise them: Momentum should fight for cross-border struggle to restore and extend free movement and level up rights across Europe and beyond; against the Tories’ moves to sharpen Brexit; and for moves to reverse Brexit.

Socialism

Socialism means the people, led by the working class, organising to liberate ourselves from capitalist exploitation, by creating a new society based on common ownership of productive wealth and democratic planning to curb the climate crisis and meet social needs.

As Momentum Internationalists and then as LLI, and for many of us long before that, we have campaigned to make Momentum more democratic. We welcome the recent decisions for a Momentum convention, for STV for the NCG, etc., and want to help see through their implementation. Momentum still needs democratisation; for example, NCG minutes that are prompt and informative, not cryptic and often long-delayed; and access to the NCG for motions from caucuses and local groups.

BEYOND THE WINDFALL TAX

As well as organising more protests and strikes to push up wages, the labour movement needs to fight for radically different policies. In line with TUC Congress and Labour conference decisions, our movement should campaign for at least:
• Reversing the £20 UC cut; above-inflation benefit increases
• A significant real-terms rise for public sector workers
• A minimum wage of £15 for all
• Sick pay at least at minimum wage level for all
• Rent controls
• A mass insulation program
• Scrapping all anti-union laws, to help drive up wages, conditions and rights.

Furthermore we should campaign for:
• Heavy taxation of the rich – including through income tax, corporation tax and an ongoing wealth tax – to diminish their power, reduce inequality and unlock resources
• Public ownership of energy production, distribution and supply, to decarbonise and cut bills.

Winning action to raise living standards will increase the possibility of winning wider demands including building council housing, restoring the NHS and local government, creating a public care system, and more…

We will campaign for these demands, and agitate for the whole labour movement to fight for them, writing publicly to the Labour Party [and to our union nationally].

Zoom https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85160880793

Speakers include – James Meadway, former economic adviser to John McDonnell https://www.ippr.org/about/people/staff/james-meadway

Michael Roberts, editor of “World in Crisis: A Global Analysis of Marx’s Law of Profitability” (2018: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1216-world-in-crisis) and blogger at https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/events/724760288856199/

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/labour-and-economic-policy-tickets-348649799937