Labour Party Developments

Labour Party Developments 

The purpose of this LTB is to update Branches on recent political developments within the Labour Party and the position the CWU has taken on these.

 

The CWU response to the actions of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)

 

As branches will be aware, following the vote to Leave the EU there were a series of resignations from the Shadow Cabinet and a no confidence vote in Jeremy Corbyn at the PLP designed to force him to resign and bring about a new leadership election. The union immediately made it clear that we condemned this infighting, and MPs abandoning their front bench posts, at a time when the opposition should have been united in holding the government to account.

 

In recent weeks, the union has also signed a number of joint statements with other affiliated unions which made it clear that we did not support the attempts to undermine the leadership election which took place less than a year ago and the union’s NEC published a statement to this effect on 1st July. This was circulated to branches with LTB 397/16.

 

Union brokered talks with PLP Representatives

 

Following the developments with the PLP, together with Unison and GMB, the CWU was involved in supporting and shaping the approach made by Len McCluskey General Secretary of Unite, to broker peace talks with a number of key Labour MPs.

 

It was agreed by all parties that these talks would commence formally on Sunday 10th July and it is important that all CWU Branches are aware that it was made clear to the senior representatives of the PLP from the outset that the question of Jeremy Corbyn resigning was not on the table.

 

Along with the other General Secretaries due to attend the talks, I was therefore surprised by the statement from Tom Watson, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party that was released to the media on Saturday morning without any prior consultation, claiming the talks had failed.

 

The truth is Tom Watson deliberately chose to abandon discussions before they had commenced in earnest. It would appear from subsequent events that the real motives behind this were that the representatives of the PLP had formed a view that the Labour NEC would support an interpretation of the Labour Party rules preventing Jeremy Corbyn being automatically put on the ballot paper as the incumbent leader.

 

Labour Party NEC meeting on 12th July

 

As Branches will be aware, after a long meeting on 12th July, the Labour NEC confirmed that as leader of the party Jeremy Corbyn would be on the ballot paper automatically. I want to place on record my thanks to Andy Kerr DGS (T) and CWU representative on the Labour Party NEC, for playing a leading role in ensuring they reached this position.

 

It has been clear that a significant number of MPs have opposed Jeremy Corbyn and the influx of new members in the party from the start and were determined to keep him off of the ballot paper. Jeremy Corbyn was elected less than a year ago with an overwhelming mandate and it would have been fundamentally wrong for the outrageous actions of the PLP to have succeeded. Thankfully, democracy and natural justice prevailed.

 

Media reports on Yougov poll of CWU members

 

Branches may also have seen reports this week claiming that trade unions, including from the CWU, had been polled on their support for Jeremy Corbyn. This was being used to suggest that he no longer had the support of trade union members.

 

While we were initially refused any information on this, we have now spoken to Yougov and have learned that the figures being used for our union were based on responses from just 57 people and nobody can yet verify whether they were actually CWU members. This falls well short of standard polling practices and we regard this information as little more than propaganda. We are aware that the individual behind it is a former Labour Party employee.

 

 

 

Next steps

 

Following the confirmation of the timetable for the leadership election this week, I will now be putting a document to the union’s NEC on the 28th July, to re-affirm our support and nomination for Jeremy Corbyn. This also reflects current Annual Conference policy.

 

CWU members who pay the political levy and who joined the union prior to 12th January 2016 will be eligible to vote in the election as affiliated supporters and further information will be sent out to branches today on the sign up process. We will be seeking to maximise the number of CWU members taking part in this.

 

Finally, we are giving consideration to holding a national political briefing/event in the near future and appropriate information on this will follow in due course.

 

Any enquiries on the above LTB should be addressed to gsoffice@cwu.org.

 

Yours sincerely

 
 

Dave Ward

General Secretary