THE FUTURE PARTY.....

So that's it. I've written the speech ( thanks to those who helped with comments). I'll state my case, I'll make it clear, and of one thing I am now certain.
Win or lose, I will continue to state the case for a Labour Party untrammelled by neo-liberalism, one which has room for all points of view, and one which at some point in the future will re-engage the many who currently are not motivated to take part.
Yesteday I was chatting to someone who used to be very active in the Party but who for years has felt her contribution would not make a scrap of difference . It DOES of course make a difference if you contribute to the few democratic processes left - one of which is choosing PPCs. But, both in Keighley and Calder Valley, it has been a Herculean task persuading people they need to be there to make that difference. And , without a re-democratisation of the Party, those kinds of perceptions will still hold sway - and cost us dearly at the next election.

ARE YOU SAVING THE LABOUR PARTY OR NOT?

Grassroots Alliance candidate Peter Kenyon, with whom I have parted political company in the past couple of years, is going down some strange roads in his bid to get on the NEC.
Uncharacteristically, he now seems to be differing from the agreed policy of Save The Labour Party, of which he is Chair.
His personal website both misrepresents and does not support the Calder Valley resolution which, bizarrely, Save The Labour Party is officiallly SUPPORTING. Take a look at the STLP newsletter on the website and you will note it is quite clear that support is reommended for it. All I can say is that STLP used to campaign to further democracy. Its chair clearly now prefers pointless pleas to the leadership to change tack. Please explain this anomaly....

SHALL WE STAY OR SHALL WE GO?

The mood is bleak on the Left of the Labour Party. Some messages from (I think) younger comrades saying the latest news from the NEC gives them reason to believe there is no point in staying around.
Bob Wareing's blatant de-selection in Liverpool West Derby ( whatever the rights and wrongs of it) looks like turning into another farrago and all around us voices are saying, friendly voices from comrades and frankly hostile ones from enemies, just pack it in. So why shouldn't we? Let's face it. 2007 has been a car crash for our hopes of serious change and the Labour Right would love nothing more than for all of us to quit and spend the rest of our political days on street corners selling Socialist Worker and boasting about how we got 200 votes in Parliamentary elections and how it's a "great step for socialism."
An even worse scenario is for the remaining Left MPs to quit the Party, stand as Independents and get roasted alive ( with one or two exceptions, like John McDonnell, who would probably survive ). The reality is that we have to carry on campaigning from within because if we don't then it's handed over for ever to the corporate sponsors, the money men, the neo-Tories and New Labour apparatchiks who are currently running the show. The ones who will be out in force at Bournemouth.
Last night, I watched bits of the Liberal Democrat conference and I have to say most of their policies are far more "left" than anything I've heard in years from this Govt.
More tax for the rich, asylum for illegal immigrants, anti Trident. Hey, they are even able to vote at their Conference. So why don't I just sod off, cut my losses and tear up my Party card?
Because, unlike the Liberal Democrats, Labour gets into power. It also has a federal structure and trade unions who affiliate, and a grassroots still largely remain committed to the socialist values which made me join the Labour Party.
Gordon Brown has spent a lifetime in the labour movement and believes utterly in the policies he is taking forward. I do not doubt his abilities or his intellect. But there are different voices in the Labour Party , voices less strident in defending capitalism, voices who would better defend the poor and vulnerable against the interests of the private equity fat cats and greedy mortgage lenders, voices who are for peace and against the obscenity of weapons of mass destruction. Voices who do not believe they have to be kept as some bogus "deterrent." Most of those voices are still in the Labour and trade union movement. At the moment, they are not being listened to. But that cannot last for ever.

SAVE THE LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE

Thanks to Save The Labour Party for the following press release. Stand firm, comrades!

Activists call for full publication of reactions to Brown Labour Party

London, 15 September - Save the Labour Party (STLP) has written to Labour Party Leader Gordon Brown asking for full publication of all submissions to his proposals for extending and renewing [Labour] party democracy the deadline for which was noon yesterday.

Evidence gathered by STLP and other Labour Party activists to date suggests widespread opposition to Brown's proposal to stop members tabling, debating and voting on resolutions at future Annual Conferences.
STLP Chair, Peter Kenyon, said: "It is vital that Labour practices what it preaches when it comes to party reform. What confidence can the public have in government consultations if our Party Leader is seen trying to gag his own party?"
The gagging move is also being resisted by affiliated trade unions. The Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation (TULO) meeting in Brighton agreed by a large majority to vote against Brown's Plan at the 2007 Annual Labour Party Conference in Bournemouth next weekend.
Efforts by No.10 advisors at the TUC in Brighton last week to broker a compromise even before the consultation closed failed. A further meeting is pencilled in on Monday ahead of the pre-Conference Labour Party National Executive Committee meeting on Tuesday.

For those ofyou who don't know, STLP ( of which I have been a member for 4 years) has attracted support from all sections of the Labour Party. It has close links with other campaigning organisations in the labour movement in England, Scotland and Wales, including the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy and the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, which last year had four of its candidates elected to the NEC.
The LabOUR Commission's report "Renewal - a two-way process for the 21st century" was published after the polls closed in May 2007. It includes a 10-point plan to rebuild the Labour Party as a financially sound, mass membership democratic socialist organisation. It can be downloaded from http://www.labourcommission.org.uk/