Current C1.VIII.6

All powers of the NEC may be exercised as the NEC deems appropriate through its elected officers, committees, sub-committees, the General Secretary and other national and regional officials and designated representatives appointed by the NEC or the General Secretary. For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that the NEC shall have the power to delegate its powers to such officers and shall see fit. Further, it shall be deemed always to have had such power.

Add a new 7

All powers of the NEC shall not be exercised in a manner that that is, or could be seen as, capricious, arbitrary, perverse, irrational, or contrary to natural justice and due process as indicated in article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights. Any decisions taken by the NEC, or others acting on behalf of the NEC, shall not be made in a manner that is, or could be seen as, capricious, arbitrary, perverse, irrational, or contrary to natural justice and due process as indicated in article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights.

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Constituency Labour Parties can submit either a rule-change proposal or a motion. Most, of course, decide to submit motions. However, motions will reach conference floor only if the topic the CAC classifies them into wins in the priority ballot (for six topics from CLPs, six from unions) and if the CAC does not rule them out of order for being “on more than one subject” or some other reason.

CLPs have to decide by mid-June about submitting a rule-change proposal, though if they decide not to, they have until mid-September to decide on a motion.

12 noon, Friday 17 June 2022 – Closing date for Constitutional Amendments and CLP delegations
5pm, Thursday 15 September 2022 – Deadline for receipt of motions
12 noon, Thursday 22 September 2022 – Deadline for emergency motions
Sunday 25 September to Wednesday 28 September 2022 – Annual Conference 2022, in Liverpool

This draft wording above is obviously less direct than we would wish, but it is specially designed so as not to fall foul of the “three-year rule” which would nix other wordings. The formulation “capricious, arbitrary, perverse or irrational” comes from the court in the McNicol case https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelou_v_McNicol ruling that powers of the NEC must be taken as limited by that criterion.

Excluding people for articles or interviews from years ago, especially if such articles or interviews were clearly part of a process of debate, seems “capricious, arbitrary, perverse and irrational”.

Solidarity with refugees, no to Rwanda deportations

Notes:

1. The 13 April announcement by the government of yet more anti-migrant measures including a deal to remove asylum-seekers from the UK to Rwanda, military operations in the English Channel against refugee boats, and the establishment of a new detention centre to imprison refugees in the UK.

2. That following threats of obstruction by civil service unions and PCS support for a legal challenge, the government has abandoned its plans for life-threatening pushbacks targeting boats at sea.

Believes

1. That the government can be made to retreat further by a concerted labour movement campaign.

2. That refugees should be welcomed, and the anti-migrant legislation introduced over many decades rolled back.

3. That the continued drive against refugees shows that the government’s rhetoric around those fleeing Ukraine is empty.

Resolves

1. To advertise demonstrations against the government’s anti-refugee and anti-migrant plans and seek to mobilise members.

2. To issue a statement on these issues.

3. To seek to make links with unions and human rights defenders in Rwanda to resist the offshoring plan, and call on our national union to do likewise.

4. To call on the Labour Party to commit to repealing the Nationality and Borders Bill, to reversing decades of anti-migrant legislation, and to legislate for safe and legal routes for all asylum seekers; end immigration raids, detention and deportation; expand unconditional rights to family reunion; grant asylum seekers day-one rights to work, social security and public services..

5. To organise a public meeting to discuss how workers in our sector can help defy and push back anti-migrant and anti-refugee legislation, and to invite a speaker from the Labour Campaign for Free Movement.

Policing and the Right to Protest

Conference believes:

●  That the Tories’ Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts legislation is an appalling attack on human rights. Labour must campaign and pledge to repeal it in its entirety.

●  That restrictions on the right to protest from the 1986 Public Order Act and 1994 Criminal Justice Act also need abolishing.

Conference further believes:

●  That heavy policing and punitive criminal justice are not solutions to society’s problems. We must attack poverty and inequality, restore and expand social provision, and narrow the spheres in which criminal justice operates. We must push back hard against the Tory agenda for society, towards a society based on provision for people’s needs, not profit-making.

●  Labour must advocate:

○  Urgent moves to tackle police violence and abuse, including replacing the so-called Independent Office for Police Conduct with a more independent and democratic body;

○  Full accountability of police to elected local authorities;

○  Curbing police powers, including in terms of use of force, stop and search and presence in schools. General demilitarisation and disarming;

○  Addressing drug-related problems through public-health policies instead of criminalisation;

○  Provision of services so that mental-health crises are dealt with by trained civilian workers, not police;

○  A major prisoner release programme and sharply curtailing use of prison.

Conference resolves:

● That Labour will campaign for and pledge to implement such policies.

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Submitted to Momentum Policy Primary by: Southwark Momentum

Build a Welcoming Britain: Towards an Internationalist
Socialist Immigration Policy

Conference notes:

●  This government’s treatment of Ukrainian and Afghan refugees, and the Windrush scandal victims, show its policies are out of touch.

●  Public polling shows increasing support for asylum seekers’ right to work.

●  UNHCR said the Nationality and Borders Bill would “penalise most refugees seeking asylum”.

●  Making migrant workers precarious diminishes our power to unionise and fight back.

●  We applaud PCS trade unionists considering striking against dangerous maritime “pushback” plans.

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

Labour in opposition and government will:

●  Repeal the Nationality and Borders Bill and all anti-migrant legislation;

●  Secure an immigration system based on dignity not numerical caps, minimum income/wealth requirements, or utility to employers;

●  Allow asylum seekers to work immediately upon arrival;

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

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

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

●  Introduce equal voting rights for all UK residents;

●  Replace Settled Status with an automatic Right to Stay;

●  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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Submitted to Momentum Policy Primary by: Labour Campaign for Free Movement, Walthamstow Momentum

For Public Ownership of Energy

Conference notes:

Energy bills are rising to nearly £3,000 per year, leaving 8.5 million households unable to heat their homes.

Oil and gas companies have handed out almost £200 billion to shareholders since 2010.

Privatised National Grid has a monopoly on gas transmission across the UK mainland and electricity transmission in England.

The energy bill crisis highlights the need for radical measures to defend and improve living standards and exposes how our energy system is organised.

Labour’s 2021 and 2019 Conferences voted overwhelmingly for “public ownership of energy including energy companies, creating an integrated, democratic system”, and “public ownership of energy, creating an integrated democratic system; public ownership of the Big Six” respectively.

Conference believes:

Full public ownership, democratic control and radical reorganisation of the energy industry are necessary to tackle the climate crisis, and for social, ecological and security reasons. Our energy system should work for all, not just a handful of shareholders.

The leadership should immediately advocate for this as part of a socialist Green New Deal.

Conference resolves Labour will campaign for and implement:

Full public ownership of the energy industry, including the National Grid and regional distribution, on the lines of the 2021 and 2019 Conferences’ policies so it works for people and planet, not private profit.

A permanent windfall tax on oil and gas companies like Shell and BP at a 56% rate (on top of corporation tax), using revenue generated to expand publicly owned renewables, and cease subsidising energy supply companies.

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Submitted to Momentum Policy Primary by: Bristol Momentum, Stevenage Momentum and Southampton Momentum

The deadline for Labour conference motions is 18 September, so it’s unlikely that many CLPs will be discussing motions as early as May or June. But, just in case, here is a model motion on Ukraine. We will work on revising the text in line with events.

We condemn Putin’s war in Ukraine as an act of aggression against Ukraine’s democratic right to exist as an independent state. We support Ukraine’s right to self-determination, its right to defend itself, to appeal for weapons to defeat the invasion, and to be provided with weapons.

We extend our solidarity in particular to Ukrainian trade unionists and socialists who continue to promote and defend workers’ and human rights even in the midst of war. We call on the Ukrainian government to reverse war-time attacks on workers’ rights.

We support anti-war left and labour movement forces in Russia and extend our solidarity to those arrested for protesting against the war.

We do not support NATO; indeed we oppose its existence. But NATO is not the aggressor here. The aggressor is Russia. Putin openly declares that Ukraine should not exist as an independent state.

We oppose increased defence spending.

We congratulate members of Unite and Unison who have defied the anti-union laws by taking industrial action to block the import of Russian fossil fuels in solidarity with Ukraine.

We condemn the Tories’ restrictions on refugees from the war seeking to resettle in the UK and call for their scrapping, as part of our more general opposition to Tory anti-refugee / migrant policies.

The whole party will campaign on these lines, working with UK unions to raise support for the Ukrainian labour movement.

(231 words)

Momentum’s “Policy Primary”, to decide which motions Momentum backs for Labour Party conference in September, moves to a ballot of Momentum members on 20-27 April.

Three of the texts to be considered have been pushed by Labour Left Internationalists – on public ownership of energy, on policing, and on free movement – and we urge Momentum members to support those.

Momentum members can vote for five texts. We’ve not had enough time to consult LLI supporters widely enough to recommend on which other two to favour, so LLI as such is only recommending three.

We can say that most of the 20 are ones we’d generally support, but:

• Some lack teeth in what they would commit Labour to (even notionally: we know, of course, that good motions spelling out firm commitments can also be sidelined by the leadership…)

• Some cover so many issues that they would be very likely to get ruled out of order for covering more than one subject as our own Build Back Socialist one was in 2021

• Some look vaguer than existing (2019 or 2021) conference policy, so passing them would not even be a reaffirmation of good existing policy.

On the whole, we want motions which are crisp and spell out clear commitments (the better to campaign for those commitments when the leadership evades them), and motions which are reasonably secure against being ruled out of order.

https://peoplesmomentum.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Policy-Primary-2022_-Final-motions-for-a-ballot-of-all-members.pdf

The deadline for Labour Party conference motions is not until 15 September, so most Constituency Labour Parties will leave it to nearer then before deciding. Some, however, may decide to submit a rule-change proposal instead, and they have to do that by mid-June.

Timetable:

12 noon, Friday 17 June 2022 – Closing date for Constitutional Amendments and CLP delegations
5pm, Thursday 15 September 2022 – Deadline for receipt of motions
12 noon, Thursday 22 September 2022 – Deadline for emergency motions
Sunday 25 September to Wednesday 28 September 2022 – Annual Conference 2022, in Liverpool

With James Meadway, Michael Roberts, a speaker invited from “Labour 4 Day Week”, and a speaker from LLI.

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