No request for nomination paper

T he NEC meeting on 16 September had been heavily trailed in the media as the place where ‘Blairite rebels’ were to demand MPs be issued with leadership nomination papers. In the event, the issue took up less than three minutes and no one at the meeting indicated any support for the ‘rebels’ cause. General Secretary, Ray Collins, made a statement that there was no requirement in Labour’s rules that nomination papers be sent out and that, for a leadership election, conference has to agree by vote first. He indicated that if 20 per cent of Labour MPs wanted to nominate someone else they could do this at any time, without the need for any particular form. Although several NEC members indicated they wanted to speak, the meeting agreed to note the statement and move on to the next item.

Under a report from the Organisation Sub-committee, the issue of Labour Mayors being automatically imposed on Labour Groups as their Leaders was raised. A working group had been set up to discuss the issue as a significant lobby in the party that wants Leaders elected by Groups. Peter Willsman said the principles of accountability and democracy should be upheld. The argument being put forward in support of doing away with the election was that some Mayors are just mavericks who act as they want, so imposing them as Leaders would subject them to a degree of Group discipline. When a vote was taken, most NEC members were in favour of the report, but three were against.

Under matters arising from the July NEC, Mike Griffiths indicated that there had been a proposed rule change to go to conference which would alter the composition of the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC), about which there had been considerable disquiet. As a result the rule change proposal was being withdrawn and there will be further negotiations. The withdrawn proposed rule change would have reduced the unions’ influence over the CAC, by adding new members elected by the National Policy Forum (NPF).

Under the General Secretary’s report Peter Willsman said that a number of CLPs had queried the guidance sent to them on how to submit a ‘contemporary issue’ to conference. It stated that to be included on the agenda the ‘contemporary issue’ must be a matter that is not covered by the NPF documents, but CLPs only received these documents four days before the deadline for submitting ‘contemporary issues’ to the national party. Walter Wolfgang said the NPF had been a lost opportunity to change policy. Ann Black pointed out there was something wrong with a process when someone who was actually at the NPF had to spend a week afterwards reading through the documents to work out what was agreed. She was concerned about how democratic the system is when some policy gets changed by just a couple of people agreeing a proposal with a minister. On Trident, Ann Black noted that prior to the NPF meeting the wording of policy, whilst favouring Trident replacement, was to a degree emollient. After the NPF meeting the language was more ‘gung-ho’ about keeping nuclear weapons.

P reparations for the forthcoming annual conference were reported on and it was indicated the theme would be ‘fair rules for everyone’. There then followed a lengthy discussion as to whether to cut the Wednesday afternoon conference session. Delegates and visitors were expecting there to be a full day of proceedings that day, but it was now proposed to finish at 2pm, without breaking for lunch. Harriet Harman’s Deputy Leader speech at the end of conference would be moved to around 1pm. Many NEC members pointed out that the conference was due to start in just four days so this proposed change was somewhat late in the day. Ann Black pointed out people had already booked their return train journeys. It was also pointed out that six ministers are timetabled to address the conference on the Wednesday and they would need to have time limits placed on them.

Under her Deputy Leader’s report, Harriet Harman said that David Cameron had not got a clue about the problems unfolding in the economy. She said that people were worried about the economy, and in the party there was concern about disunity as party members did not want to see government handed over to the Tories. Attention needed to be focussed on elections coming up next year; to the European Parliament, county councils and borough councils. It was reported that Labour councillors were furious with the ‘rebel’ MPs and Mary Turner said the MPs waging the campaign were doing damage to the party.

Peter Willsman said there was a ‘drip drip drip’ of MPs going to the press to try to keep their campaign in the public eye. He was also concerned about the crisis that had been created by Georgia and the way the Foreign Secretary seemed to be very ‘gung-ho’, echoing the line of George Bush. He reminded the meeting that it was Georgia that attacked South Ossetia.

Dennis Skinner pointed out that Black Wednesday was 16 years ago this month and then inflation was 16 per cent and David Cameron was an advisor to Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont. Now inflation is four per cent and the current economic crisis clearly did not originate here.

G ordon Brown, in his Leader’s report, reminded the meeting that the Tories let unemployment reach three million and left millions of people with negative equity. He stressed the help people would be getting from the government with their fuel bills and insulation. He said that the Tories had realised their old brand was unacceptable to voters so now they told people that they cared about things, with a new image, but Tory policies did not match up with this. Mary Turner pointed out millions of poor people would miss out on help with fuel bills and insulation if they were a couple of pounds over the threshold. She thought the best thing Gordon Brown could say in his speech to annual conference was that the government would stop the privatisation of schools, local government, and the health service.

Under the European Parliamentary report, Peter Willsman raised concerns about Colombia being on a list of countries considered favourable for trading with.