Well, it didn't take long. Less than 24 hours into his Labour leadership, Brown is already on the warpath against the trade unions. Last year, Dave Prentis (pictured) had his mike switched off by New Labour stooge Gary Titley MEP in a heated debate on NHS privatisation. Now Brown wants to go the whole hog and end the block vote at Labour conference - and the unions' right to put forward contemporary and emergency motions. Instead, there will be "general debates" by members.
Now to the naive, this may sound perfectly reasonable.Indeed, it will be spun as an extension of democracy. Be warned. It is anything but.
CLPs can already choose four key issues of their own they want to debate ( the bar was raised from 2 in 2003 with help from the UNIONS) to debate at Conference. Yes it should be more but were it not for the unions in the past few years, none of the following issues would have been debated: Iraq, social housing and the fourth option, NHS privatisation, the plight of agency workers. railway re-nationalisation. And, because the unions do vote in blocks, all these issues have a) got through the right-wing gerrymandering of the Conference Arrangements Committee and b) been passed by Conference with support from the CLPs. Some of you may recall a similar idea on weakening the unions' clout was once floated by Jon cruddas. It will be interesting to see where he stands now. One thing is clear. The NEC MUST oppose this move . And so must the Party.See John McDonnell's blog for more details.
John says: " This is the first step by the new Leader towards breaking the link between the party and the trade unions. This is a real kick in the teeth for all those trade unions who loyally nominated Brown to the leadership of the party. Many will now be wondering what hope there is of exercising any influence on the key issues of privatisation, public sector pay cuts, and trade union rights.
"We are launching a campaign within the Party and the trade unions to save the rights of trade unions within the Labour Party."
"We are launching a campaign within the Party and the trade unions to save the rights of trade unions within the Labour Party."
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4 comments:
According to my sources here
http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/
herethe Beeb got the story wrong.
This is not about the bloc vote at Conference, it is about any vote.
Susan, I'm sorry but some of what you've said was just factually incorrect.
Gary, said, Dave, time. He then repeated it over and over again. Dave ignored him so Gary switched the mike off after letting him over run considerably.
I was on conference floor too - there was no red light.The mike was just switched off.
Jack Dromey also appealed for extra time for DP and asked Titley to apologise - Prentis's speech had been interrupted by applause so he hadn't finished.It was disgusting . The whole "debate" was a shambles and allowed derisory time. John McDonnell never even got to speak.
As Peter said Broon is trying to change the whole format. No divisive voting at all. CLPs cannot be trusted to get things right any more than TUs.
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