Four inches of snow had fallen
during the night and temperatures were well below freezing, but with breath
turning white in the icy air the socialists from Peterborough Labour Party were
out campaigning for Socialist Appeal supporter, Ron Graves, who is the
prospective candidate for Stanground Central in the May local government
elections.
The following is a motion written and
proposed by Adam Booth, Labour Party member and secretary of the
Cambridge Marxist Discussion Group. The resolution was written in
response to comments made recently by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, the
leader of the Labour Party and Shadow Chancellor respectively, who have
outlined that the Labour Party cannot promise to reverse any of the
Coalition’s cuts if Labour is elected in the next election.
The recent remark by Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, that the Labour
party should join a Lib-Lab coalition, is another dangerous attempt to
push the party to the right
In response to pressure from the bosses’ press and Blairites, Labour leader, Ed Milliband has come out in favour of the government’s line on cuts and pay. Rob Sewell responds.
The recent Scottish Labour Leadership contest saw the
election of former deputy leader Johann Lamont to the role. With the
endorsement of most MPs, MSPs and trade unions, she was the clear choice
of the party leadership, and won with 51% of first preference votes.
If the report in Today’s edition of the Guardian (click here
to read it) is to be believed it seems that the Labour leadership has
decided to ignore any of the good stuff which may have come out of the
Refounding Labour consultation exercise and instead dig up some old
Blairite/New Labour garbage. Yet again, they want to dilute the union
presence in the party decision making process. Given that the mood in
the movement is for a more powerful annual conference rather than the
jamboree it became under Blair, Ed Miliband has offered up some
‘reforms’ of his own.
The Labour Party have launched a "consultation" exercise around a document called ‘Refounding Labour. ‘ What issues are involved and what response will best serve the movement now as the Tory led coalition government attacks our public services? These questions are considered in a response to the document written by a party activist from Coventry which we publish here.
Saturday 26th March 2011 marked a watershed point for the modern Labour
Party. The Trade Union Congress had called for workers, students,
pensioners and all those affected by the coalition cuts to converge on
the capital. The question was: would Labour show up to the party too?
Around 350 Labour Party members, trade unionists and socialists
attended the 2011 LRC (Labour Representation Committee) “Resist the
Cuts, Rebuild the Party” conference at Conway Hall in London on January
15th. LRC Conference tends to major on the big events of the day. Two
years ago it was the economic crash and last year the general election.
This year the conference was not surprisingly dominated by the threat of
cuts and the need to defeat them.
The depth and the scale of the damage that
the Tories and Liberal Democrats intend to impose on the public sector
will
become more apparent on the 20th October when the results of
the
Comprehensive Spending Review will be announced. Already the summer
budget has highlighted
the threat of between 25% and 40% cuts across government departments.
Against all the odds and against the wishes of the whole establishment from The Economist to The Sunday Times, Ed Miliband has emerged as Labour Party leader, simply by standing a little to the left of his brother. This clinched the trade union members vote, which shows in which direction workers want the party to go, clearly to the left. But which way will Ed Miliband go?
Socialist Appeal Editorial: The Labour leadership election contest will
be ending in September as the ballot papers finally go out. It could
have been an opportunity to discuss a balance-sheet of the right-wing
control of the party under New Labour and an opportunity to discuss a
socialist programme in face of the worst capitalist crisis since the
1930s. However, the contest has left most people cold.