WEST YORKSHIRE LRC MEETS IN HUDDERSFIELD

A week today Saturday November 29 the West Yorkshire LRC will meet at the Irish Centre, Huddersfield , a few minutes walk from the railway station. The meeting starts at 2pm and , aside from the usual routine business, Alice Mahon and I will be talking about the National Conference and the need to take serious steps to regionalise the LRC and how we should go about it. Ed Doveton, who narrowly failed to get onto the National Committee, will be contributing too.

We will report back what you say to the next NC meeting and, as newly-elected LRC Vice-Chair, I promise I will also do my best to get more commitment to events being staged outside the capital and more national input from the various LRC branches within a 100-mile radius of Hebden Bridge.

Next Saturday's meeting is open to anyone supportive of the LRC. You don't have to be a paid-up member. Just come along and join in the debate. Oh... forgot to add the bar will be open so we can have a pre-Christmas drink afterwards.

VOTE FOR REGIONAL REPRESENTATION!

Today I'm going down to London for the LRC AGM and I will be standing for one of two posts as Vice-Chair of the LRC.
Firstly, thanks for the nominations received, which include Socialist Youth Network, Greater London LRC and West Yorkshire LRC. Thanks too to Alice Mahon, one of the best socialist Labour MPs we have ever had. Alice is standing for a seat on the LRC National Committee and I urge everyone to vote for her - we need more Northern commonense! The West Yprkshire line-up is completed by Patrick Hall of leeds campaign Group and Ed Doveton from Colne Valley CLP
I have been a Labour Party member for over 30 years and an NUJ activist for 24 years. I have held many officer positions within the Party, and am currently Branch Secretary of my local Party and a member of the Calder Valley constituency executive.
For the past five years I have served as a Town Councillor , and am currently Hebden Royd Council Chair and Town Mayor. I have also stood as a candidate for the Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council and am Chair of the Calderdale NUJ.
In recent years I have actively campaigned on a national basis for the Labour Left. Until last year I was a National Committee member of Save The Labour Party and support the Grassroots Umbrella network, which brings together all left groups within the Party at Conference. I have also been an active supporter of the Campaign For Labour Party Democracy . In May, I was elected to the Editorial Board of Labour Briefing and I am a regular contributor.
Last year I organised a successful launch conference in Hebden Bridge which was a springboard for all the regional LRCs and I have just been re-elected Secretary of the West Yorkshire LRC, which is now one of the biggest regional groups in the country. But the plain fact is that much more needs to be done to build the LRC into a truly national organisation.
One of the key tasks when the LRC was founded was to try and re-claim the Labour Party for socialist values. That is still a task which I regard as absolutely fundamental. As I have said many times on this blog, I do not believe anything can be achieved by leaving the Party other than political oblivion.
But I also strongly believe we must build bridges with those who stay outside the Party for reasons of disaffection and disillusion. That's why I got involved in the Convention Of The Left - a coalition of socialists who managed to forget faction-fighting and organise a tremendously successful event in Manchester to counter the official Labour Conference.
What divides left activists inside and outside Labour ? The truth is very very little. We can stand shoulder to shoulder with them on issues ranging from the economy, trade union rights, climate change , and peace . That work must go on.
We need an active Vice-Chair who puts in the work required over the next 12 months to build the LRC and raise its profile . If elected, I promise to do that. Within the Labour Party but also outside it in the wider labour movement. We also urgently need to ensure that comrades outside London get their voices heard. If you are going to be there on Saturday, and if you want the LRC to reach out nationally and get the message across there are still thousands fighting for socialism within the Labour Party, vote for us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALICE!

The happiest of bithdays to my friend and comrade Alice Mahon, who celebrates her 71st birthday today. I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with Alice over Labour Party Conference and she is truly an inspirational role-model when it comes to standing firm and sticking to principles. Alice is also co-chair of the West Yorkshire LRC and will be at our AGM on Saturday October 11 at the Trades Club in Hebden Bridge

SPRING AND SUMMER PLANS

A good meeting yesterday with Linda Riordan MP where West Yorkshire LRC established links with three more constituencies (Dewsbury, Shipley and Harrogate and Knaresborough) and laid plans for events around May Day weekend in Leeds, a music festival in the summer and of course the day-to-day grind of campaigning in the constituencies. Our numbers are growing slowly but steadily and fortunately we have the support of grassroots MPs like Linda, who prvided us with lots of useful background on Northern Rock, the Agency Workers Bill, and threats to funding for women victims of abuse.