Gemma Bolton: Why I’m standing to represent local parties on Labour’s NEC

In less than six months’ time, whichever right-wing ideologue the Tory membership picks as the party’s new leader may well appear on the steps of Downing Street and announce that they are calling a general election. If this happens, what substantive vision or policies will the Labour Party offer to the country?

Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) will meet and consider this very question ahead of the next general election when it is summoned – as per the Labour Party rulebook – in a special ‘Clause V’ meeting to hash out the party’s manifesto. In the upcoming NEC elections, Labour members will have their last chance to choose who they send into that room.

If elected, in that meeting I will argue that, for Labour to win the next general election, we must fight for a transformative, bold and popular policy agenda that stands in opposition to Conservative attacks on our jobs, health, shared values and living standards. We must oppose Tory austerity in the midst of an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, rip up anti-trade union legislation, support public ownership, campaign for a green new deal to tackle the climate emergency, adopt a peace-orientated, independent foreign policy and fight rising poverty and racism.

To win and to gain a mandate to offer the fundamental change that Britain so desperately needs, it is not sufficient for Labour’s offer to the public to simply be: ‘We are not the Tories.’ We have to offer something that is clear and differentiates ourselves. We must offer something that will mobilise our base and unify working-class people in response to the real economic, social and political challenges they face.

Indeed, Labour is already offering this kind of popular and winning vision in many parts of the country. In Wales, Mark Drakeford’s socialist administration is piloting universal basic income to provide economic security for all. In Manchester, mayor Andy Burnham is bringing buses into public control in order to offer affordable and green transport for residents. Pioneering councils such as Preston and North Ayrshire are pursuing a community wealth building strategy that will lock wealth into the communities they serve. These examples prove that Labour can be both politically ambitious and electorally successful, and indeed that we need to be so in order to win.

The fight for a meaningful policy offer is one part of how Labour wins the next general election. We also need to tackle the crisis of democracy and factionalism within our own party, too. This has to be a top priority for Labour’s NEC over the coming period.

The long overdue publication of the Forde report has exposed a toxic internal culture whereby senior Labour Party officials – who are supposed to act as the party’s civil servants and custodians of the rulebook – undertook a campaign of internal sabotage behind the backs of the democratically elected NEC and leadership. There must be retribution for the findings of the report, not least in tackling the overt anti-Black racism and Islamophobia revealed, in addition to addressing the failures on antisemitism.

There has also been a litany of abuses of our party’s processes and democratic culture since the Forde report was commissioned. Members have been expelled from the party simply for liking Facebook posts of organisations before those organisations were banned. Hard-working Labour councillors have been deselected at panel stage for factional reasons, without reference to the wishes of local party members. Senior councillors and activists with long-standing experience and a track record of campaigning for the party have been blocked from standing as prospective parliamentary candidates for the most spurious of reasons. A campaign of abuse has been allowed to run riot in the trigger ballot of Apsana Begum in Poplar and Limehouse Constituency Labour Party (CLP). Rule changes passed by our sovereign body, annual conference, have been ignored by the NEC.

It is tragic that our party should be faced with such a crisis of democracy and not just because of the gross injustice of treating our activists, grassroots members and trade union colleagues in such an appalling manner. This lack of respect for internal governance only helps the Tories by setting a poor example of how our party might govern if elected. We must uphold our values at all levels of the democratic system and not just when it suits us. Moreover, in a broad church such as the Labour Party, a robust internal democracy and culture of respect for different viewpoints is the only way to achieve a united party capable of winning elections – something Keir Starmer claimed to value when he stood for leader.

This is why I am proud of my record in defending democracy in our party and standing up for members’ rights since I was elected two years ago. As an NEC member I have: worked to create new democratic student and BAME structures; produced consistent, detailed written reports of NEC meetings; voted to return the whip to Jeremy Corbyn; campaigned for the publication of the Forde report; opposed unfair proscriptions and expulsions; opposed rule changes that weaken members’ rights; and supported rule changes that put more power in the hands of CLPs and trade unions. I will continue to do so if re-elected.

It is on the basis of this record that I have been nominated by 165 CLPs and endorsed by a wide range of organisations that represent the breadth of Labour’s grassroots, including: Momentum, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, Welsh Labour Grassroots, Campaign for Socialism, Labour Assembly Against Austerity, Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Jewish Voice for Labour, Red Labour, Labour Black Socialists, Labour Briefing (Co-op), Labour Representation Committee, Labour Women Leading and Northern England Labour Left.

As Harold Wilson once said, “this party is a moral crusade or it is nothing”. Ahead of an imminent general election, Labour members should use their NEC votes to back voices who believe this – and will fight for it too.

Please vote for me and the other members of the Grassroots Five team: Jess Barnard, Yasmine Dar, Mish Rahman and Naomi Wimbourne-Idrissi. Use this handy postcode tool finder to check the recommended order in which to vote in your region to maximise our chances of success.