The London Regional Conference is on Saturday 2 March and Sunday 3 March.

CLP meetings in January decide on: 

1) nominations for the Regional Board; and 

2) motions to submit to the conference.

Below are the candidates and motions being promoted by London Labour Left and Momentum.

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1) Nominations for the Regional Board

CLPs have until noon on 1 February to make nominations for the Regional Board. London Labour Left and Momentum are circulating details about the following candidates and asking CLPs to consider nominating them. Statements can be downloaded from Momentum via the links.

A) CLP representatives on the Board

Each CLP can nominate up to two CLP representatives (at least one of whom has to be a woman) for the Section of the Board that includes their constituency. The CLP reps will be elected by the CLP delegates from the same Section at the London Conference.

·         Section 1 – London Assembly constituencies of South-West (Hounslow, Kingston, Richmond) and Ealing & Hillingdon: Rheian Davies and Ranjeev Walia

·         Section 2 – London Assembly constituencies of West Central (Hammersmith & Fulham, Kensington & Chelsea, Westminster) and Merton & Wandsworth: Francis Prideaux and Fay Dowker

·         Section 3 – London Assembly constituencies of Lambeth & Southwark and Croydon & Sutton: Sam Green and James McAsh

·         Section 4 – London Assembly constituencies of Greenwich & Lewisham and Bexley & Bromley: Munir Malik and Dorinda Duncan

·         Section 5 – London Assembly constituencies of City & East (City, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Barking & Dagenham) and Havering & Redbridge: Bob Littlewood and Apsana Begum

·         Section 6 – London Assembly constituencies of North-East (Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest and Enfield and Haringey: Emina Ibrahim and Claudia Webbe

·         Section 7 – London Assembly constituencies of Barnet & Camden and Brent & Harrow: Jumbo Chan and Aghileh Djarfani-Marbini

B) Officers and NPF reps on the Board

CLPs can also make nominations for the positions of Chair, Vice-Chair, Women’s Officer, Disabilities Officer, Ethnic Minorities Officer, LGBT Officer, as well as two representatives on the National Policy Forum. These positions will be elected by an electoral college, of which CLP delegates will hold 50% and affiliates will hold the other 50%.

• ·         Chair – Jim Kelly
• ·         Vice Chair – Seema Chandwani
• ·         BAME Officer – Taranjit Chana
• ·         LGBT Officer – Lucio Buffone
• ·         Disability Officer – Rob Lugg
• ·         Women’s Officer – Alison McGarry
• ·         NPF – Adrian Weir
• ·         NPF – Elly Baker

2) Motions for the London Conference

The deadline for CLPs and affiliates to submit one motion to the London Regions Conference is 1 February. Motions can be a maximum of 250 words. 

There will be an online priority ballot to select the topics of motions debated at conference, running from 5 February to 15 February. There will be one vote per delegation cast by a CLP’s lead delegate.

If a CLP’s motion topic is chosen for debate that CLP can send a delegate to a compositing meeting on the evening of 18 February.

The deadline for receipt of Emergency Motions is 26 February.

Below are some model motions for consideration:

Public Transport in London

Conference recognises London’s requirement for a public transport system which meets the needs of:

•          London’s people (including social, family, leisure and other needs),

•          London’s economy and function as Britain’s capital and a major international city;

While ensuring- safety and well being of passengers and staff; access and affordability to all; reliability, comfort and efficiency; rapid, convenient travel to transport hubs and all parts of London; reductions in harmful emissions and congestion; and provision of high quality employment.

Thus the London Labour Party will act and campaign for: –

•          Full restoration of the national grant to TFL and its increase to reflect London’s key role.

•          The comprehensive return, as rapidly as legally and financially practicable, of London’s public transport system to public ownership; including insourcing and direct delivery of all: route operations including those of London buses and the Overground; maintenance; cleaning; construction; technical and other works.

•          Upgrades and modernisation of all public transport infrastructure, vehicles and services to proceed without delay.

•          Halting the proposed reduction / curtailment of bus services and routes; scoping instead for increased / extended public transport services including buses.

•          A halt to ticket office closures on the Underground and Overground and the restoration of staffed ticket offices. Employment on London’s public transport to be increased, not reduced.

•          Harmonisation of pay and conditions across London and restoration of collective bargaining at London level for all grades of staff. No workers to suffer pay cuts or below RPI inflation rises.

Housing in London

Conference:

Notes London’s appalling and ongoing housing crisis, to which Tory government policies, the private market and unaffordable homes offer no solution.

Welcomes the actions of the Mayor and GLA in formulating the Regeneration Ballot policy and channeling grant funding for constructing council homes.

Reaffirms Labour’s Housing policy motions passed at Regional Conference 2017 and at National Conferences 2017 and 2018, and calls for their thorough implementation; including:-

•          Retaining full ownership and control of public land and housing.

•          Direct delivery via DLOs of construction and housing maintenance

•          Prioritising building council homes at council target rents on secure lifetime tenancies

•          Ringfencing and providing publicly owned potential housing land (including TFL’s) for building council homes

•          Minimum 1:1 advance replacement, within the same neighbourhood, of council homes sold or demolished under regeneration schemes, with a minimum of 50 per cent of any additional housing being for council rents.

Conference calls for:

•          The London Plan to cease facilitating the building of sheer quantities of housing, inevitably resulting in predominantly unaffordable developments; instead, the Mayor and Local Authorities to insist on ample provision of social and genuinely affordable housing within developers’ schemes;

•          Planning Obligations in London to require a minimum of 50% genuinely affordable homes, encompassing 35% homes at council target rents.

•          Full involvement of London Region Labour Party, and Labour’s elected public officials and bodies including the LondonMayor, GLA, and Labour Councils in London, in ensuring the implementation of this motion.

London ticket office closures

Conference Notes

•          Arriva Rail London announced plans to close 51 ticket offices at stations across London Overground.

•          Arriva Rail operates all London Overground stations on behalf of Transport for London.

•          In 2016 Sadiq Khan pledged that “TfL would run services using a model where the operator focuses purely on train service reliability and high-quality customer service. Services would be fully integrated into the rest of London’s transport, including Oyster and contactless payment at every station where it doesn’t exist today”. Khan also committed to safer stations.

•          Both the Rail and Maritime Transport Union and The Train Salaried Staff Association have called for a halt to these closures.

•          Ticket office closures will result in significant job losses and are unpopular amongst railworkers and commuters alike. Some 50% of Overground users prefer to purchase tickets from an office, ticket offices provide a vital lifeline to those with disabilities and closures poses a risk to the safety of transport users.

Conference calls on London Labour to

•          Provide formal support to any Trade Union dispute which arises from the aforementioned closures including but not limited to; sending materials to London Labour members about consultation on ticket offices, industrial action and other opportunities to lobby Arriva, Transport for London, the Deputy Mayor for Transport and Mayor of London.

•          Use every mechanism within its power to stop the closure of these ticket offices, and to campaign for a TfL based on safety, service and quality jobs not private profit.

London tackling climate change

Conference notes:

1.         The UN warns we have less than 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change by keeping global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees – the Paris Agreement goal.

2.         Air pollution is an “invisible killer” reducing the life expectancy of tens of thousands of Londoners.

3.         The environment crisis gives as an opportunity to decarbonise the UK economy & create hundreds of thousands of green jobs.

4.         Labour’s manifesto of 2017, for a sustainable economy for the many not the few, and the GLA’s Environment Strategy, setting out Labour’s commitment to keeping temperatures below 1.5 degrees, reducing air pollution.

Conference believes:

1.         The Conservatives are failing to act on climate change – cutting support for green energy, pursuing fracking and not tackling air pollution.

2.         Strong action on this crisis and a just transition to a green economy can benefit communities across London, improving air quality, health & living standards and providing decent skilled jobs.

Conference calls on:

1.         Labour-run local authorities to work with NGOs, trade unions and residents to develop 1.5 degrees action plans, including ambitious actions by 2020 to drive down emissions and divest from fossil fuels.

2.         The Mayor of London to continue to show international leadership on climate change and push for action to secure 1.5 degrees, reduce air pollution substantially & make the London economy greener.

3.         A future Labour government to give the Mayor and local authorities in London the powers to make a real difference on this environment crisis.

Precarious Work and a New Framework of Labour Rights for London

Conference notes that the growth of precarious work in London is both greater than other regions of the UK and greater than the national average.

According to the TUC 83% of jobs growth in London since 2011 have been precarious jobs, compared to a national average of 71%. The Trust for London says that 10% of working age employees in London were at risk of insecure employment, compared with 9% in the rest of England.

The growth of this work is most publicly visible on the streets with such companies, claiming to be just digital platforms, as Uber and Deliveroo but it also extends to such sectors as adult social care.

Conference congratulates affiliates – Unite, the Bakers’ Union and the GMB – for their campaigning work, particularly in the casual dining and minicab sectors, aimed at limiting the worst excesses of precariousness and giving workers some security at work.

Conference believes that the deregulation of the labour market and the corresponding long term decline in salaries and wages brought about by the collapse of the coverage of union negotiated collective agreements are the intended outcomes of neo-liberal economic policies followed by government since 1980.

Conference calls on the GLA family and Labour councils to cease awarding contracts and licences to companies or “platforms” that operate precarious employment practices and congratulates those public authorities that have already taken such action.

Conference commends the commitments – Fair Deal at Work – in our Manifesto making clear how Labour will deal with these inequities at work.

London – fighting racism and the rise of the far right

The London Labour Party notes:

•          The alarming rise of racism, Islamophobia and anti-semitism and far right forces across Europe, America and elsewhere.

•          The rise of a far right street movement here in London centred on targeting Muslims, with Ukip giving open encouragement and support to Tommy Robinson.

•          With dismay, the ‘hostile environment’ initiated by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary and at the financial and emotional impact this has had on the Windrush generation and their families.

•          Labour’s campaign against the ‘hostile environment’ and supports the stand taken by the party’s Leader and Shadow Home Secretary in opposing the Tories’ scapegoating policies.

The London Labour Party believes

•          That we must combat all attempts to divide and rule Londoners.

•          That it is not migrants and refugees who undermine wages and public services, but cuts and austerity.

The London Labour Party resolves

•          To support the 16 March 2019 Anti-Racism demonstration in London to coincide with the annual UN Anti-Racism Day, to publicise this among our members and encourage CLP banners.

•          To celebrate an annual Windrush Day on 22 June each year, to recognise and honour the enormous contribution of those who arrived between 1948 and 1971.

London Labour needs a democratic choice in leadership elections

Conference notes:

•          the severe burden that austerity cuts are imposing on people across London;

•          the necessity for Labour to have a leadership committed to policies that will end austerity and improve Londoners’ living standards;

•          the popularity in London of Labour’s 2017 manifesto;

•          the 9.6 per cent vote general election share increase (from 2015 to 2017) of Labour with Jeremy Corbyn as Leader;

•          current Labour Party leadership rules (when there is a vacancy) require a candidate to receive a minimum of 10 per cent of Labour MPs and MEPs nominations to be permitted a place on the leadership election ballot paper;

•          and that this (10 per cent) threshold allows MPs to veto who can stand for Leader, so can be used to stop London party Members and Supporters from voting for their preferred candidate.

Conference believes:

•          this undemocratic rule is against the interests of Londoners, who desperately need a Labour Party that increases Labour’s support, wins, and is led by the person who commands most support within the party;

•          when a vacancy next arises for Leader, that Labour’s rules should permit the election of another leader with Jeremy Corbyn’s policies and commitment, if that is the choice of Labour Members, Affiliated Supporters and Registered Supporters, irrespective of whether MPs are willing to nominate such a candidate.

Conference calls on the NEC to review the party’s leadership rules and bring forward to Labour’s Annual Conference a rule change to rectify this lack of democracy.
London Labour Party policy making

This conference resolves to assist the development of policy for the London Mayoral and GLA elections in 2020 by establishing the following process for determining a policy programme for London to be agreed at a London Labour Party conference, based upon a draft circulated in advance and amendments submitted by CLPs and affiliates: 

1. Establishing policy commissions including on the Economy, Employment & Skills; Transport; Housing; Planning; Crime, Safety & Security; Health; Finance & Administration; Arts, Culture & Sport which should consider submissions they receive together with existing policy including resolutions of the London Labour conference in recent years.
2. Appointing to those commissions from amongst those nominated by CLPs and affiliates, the Mayor & Labour GLA members, London Councils Labour Group, the Regional Board, NPF & NEC.
3. Inviting initial submissions to those Commissions.
4. Circulating a draft programme in sufficient time to allow CLPs and affiliates to each propose a number of amendments.

Implementation of Rule Changes

This Conference notes that the 2017 London Labour Party Conference passed by overwhelmingly majorities two rule changes which would, subject to NEC approval

·       Expand Regional Board representation for CLPs to 14, elected by an OMOV ballot of members within each of 7 divisions coterminous with London Assembly constituencies

·       Expand Regional Board representation for trade unions to 14

·       Ensure the election of a Conference Arrangements Committee for the following Conference by the votes of Conference delegates

It further notes that although nominations were sought for Board members for the new divisions, no arrangements for electing Board members by OMOV have been made, and no election carried out for the CAC. In addition, a consultation paper circulated to CLP secretaries nearly five months after the Conference appeared to call into question some aspects of the rule changes.

Conference therefore calls for the rule changes passed in 2017 to be implemented in full as soon as practicable.

Motion for CLPs not for submission to conference but to be sent to Regional Director FAO Reg Bd + CAC

This CLP, in view of concerns about the counting of the votes in the elections at the last London Regional Labour Party Conference in November 2017, calls on the London Regional Labour Party Conference CAC to record votes cast by each CLP and affiliate in the elections to the Regional EC and CAC to be held at this years London Regional Labour Party Conference in March 2019, and furthermore gives notice to the Regional Director, Regional Board and the CAC that it intends to move reference back of the CAC’s first report to the conference in the event that the CAC does not report that this will be done.