Labour Campaigns Together calls on party to respect conference policy

A new initiative launched today, ‘Labour Campaigns Together’, calls on the party leadership to abide by policy motions passed at annual conference and include those proposals approved by delegates in the next manifesto.

Currently, the Labour Party is not strictly bound by policy passed at conference. It is the ‘Clause V’ meeting – held once an election is called – that decides which parts of the party programme are included in the party manifesto.

According to the 2019 Labour rulebook, no policy is included in the party programme “unless it has been adopted by the party conference by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the votes recorded on a card vote”.

A significant range of radical policies was passed at Labour conference in September, including an ambitious 2030 decarbonisation target, building 100,000 council homes a year, a four-day week, maintaining and extending free movement, integrating private schools into the state system and a coordinated strategy for mental health.

While it many of these policies will be pursued by the Labour leadership, it seems that some may only be endorsed partially. The immigration motion in particular does not appear to have secured the backing of the frontbench.

Labour Campaigns Together is supported by Labour Campaign for Council Housing, Labour 4-Day Week Campaign, Labour Campaign for Free Movement, Labour Homelessness Campaign, Labour Campaign for Mental Health, Labour Against Private Schools, Free Our Unions and Labour for a Green New Deal.

Below is the full text of the open letter to Clause V attendees.

To representatives who will attend the Clause V meeting,

At Labour Party conference last month, we were delighted to see members of the Labour Party and its affiliates, including the trade unions, overwhelmingly vote in favour of the motions brought forward by the undersigned campaigns. This triumph of member-led democracy is a tribute to the changes within the party since Jeremy Corbyn became leader. Instead of a mere formality, conference has once again become the party’s sovereign decision-making body.

A Labour victory in the upcoming general election depends on a compelling vision for a transformative, socialist agenda; this is what the membership and the motions passed by conference have provided. If fully implemented within the next manifesto, these motions would commit the Labour Party to:

• Build 100,000 social rented council homes a year
• Transition to a 32-hour working week with no loss of pay
• Protect and extend the rights of migrants, including free movement, social security and the right to vote, and shut down all detention centres.
• End all forms of criminalisation of rough sleeping and begging and commit to adopting a Homeless Bill of Rights.
• Repeal all the anti-union laws.
• Integrate private schools into a high-standard public education system
• Implement a comprehensive coordinated strategy for mental health
• Implement a Green New Deal: a massive programme of investment and democratisation to totally transform our economic and political system so it works for people and planet, not profit; a commitment to decarbonise by 2030, in line with a just transition for workers and frontline communities
• The Labour membership has demonstrated their clear and united support for this platform, and we believe that it can act as the basis of the most radical Labour manifesto of our lifetimes. We urge you to support the full inclusion of these policies within the manifesto, and we look forward to seeing them implemented by our next government.

Signed:

Labour Campaign for Council Housing
Labour 4-Day Week Campaign
Labour Campaign for Free Movement
Labour Homelessness Campaign
Labour Campaign for Mental Health
Labour Against Private Schools
Free Our Unions
Labour for a Green New Deal