NEC - MY STATEMENT

Feel free to cut and paste - I will be circulating as many CLP Secretaries as I can in the weeks ahead .Thanks to all who have offered help within the LRC and beyond.....

Labour has a once-in-a-generation chance to change.

Since the General Election, 13,000 people have joined us. The bad news is that Party democracy is still being stifled and many members’ voices remain unheard on everything from leadership elections to Parliamentary selections and Labour Party Conferences where policy decisions are ignored.

I’m standing because I want to be one of the six CLP representatives who can fight the corner of the grassroots. I want to see our Party return to democratic socialist values – the kind of values which made me join the Labour Party in 1976.

In the past seven years I have worked with a variety of other organisations including Save The Labour Party, the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy and the Labour Representation Committee of which I’m currently co Vice-Chair.

I live in West Yorkshire where I am a Labour councillor and a member of Calder Valley CLP. At the last election, I was shortlisted for the Keighley constituency and came second out of 10 PPC candidates in an AWS selection.

I am also a trade union activist in the NUJ I believe we must all work together across the Party to renew membership, improve Party democracy and fight for democratic socialist policies on everything from peace to privatisation.

If Labour can be Labour once again, we will bring back the millions who deserted us in 2010 and expose the “new politics” of the ConDem coalition for what they are – the same old Tories and the same old politics of punishing the poor for the mistakes of the rich.

Susan Press Calder Valley CLP Membership number L0017551 SsPre2'aol.com