March NEC meeting – the Left CLP reps’ report
Jess Barnard, Gemma Bolton and Yasmine Dar report back from March 25th Labour National Executive Committee meeting.
The General Secretary updated the NEC on a range of issues with particular focus on upcoming by-elections; however, unusually this month we did not receive an update on membership numbers. Jess Barnard raised that a number of people have been in touch about the petition launched by Karen Shore, Labour’s candidate for Runcorn and Helsby, which targeted an asylum seeker hotel, asking why this had been allowed to happen given the far right attacked these hotels last summer, and asked if there had been any consideration of the safety of asylum seekers currently residing there.
The response to this was unsatisfactory, noting that closing the hotels is a Party policy and that no one in their right mind who supports the rights of asylum seekers would want to keep those people in unsuitable hotels. We felt that this argument failed to address the core point, namely that opposing the housing of migrants in hotels is clearly part of a far-right demonisation of migrants, and that the petition puts a target on the hotel which is currently their home. We know this has been used in the past by far right thugs to attack them.
One member also shared that the recent welfare cuts announcements had left members refusing to campaign for the Party in despair at the decision to cut support for disabled people.
Housing
Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader, and Matthew Pennycook, Minister of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, both gave presentations. While it’s clear some progress is being made by the government on housing, specifically in the Renters’ Rights Bill, we need to see significantly more investment ring-fenced for social housing to tackle the housing crisis.
Jess asked Matthew Pennycook a question about the rolling back of truly affordable homes by developers backsliding, and whether or not the front bench have considered strengthening councils’ power to construct genuinely affordable social housing.
We are also still awaiting a response from Angela Rayner who said she would come back to us when asked in January whether Labour will repeal the Tory anti-protest legislation, which is currently being used to shut down peaceful protests.
Chair’s Report
The Party’s Chair, Ellie Reeves, read out a report in which she lauded various bits of legislation, including new Respect Orders to ban persistent offenders from town centres. This seems like a bit of Blairite cosplay, with measures which focus on restricting movement and relying on interventions from the police without genuinely addressing the issue at hand. With youth services, substance support services and community spaces decimated under 14 years of austerity, we desperately need to focus on rebuilding these to get to the root of the problem, rather than shifting the issue elsewhere.
It was said that Labour policies will ensure workers are financially better off, a questionable claim at best, and one on which Ellen Morrison, Disabled Members’ rep, sought clarification, that clearly the assertion did not include disabled workers.
Reeves also discussed the National Policy Forum consultation coming up. This generated a discussion about the deficiencies of the current NPF workplan and the reality of the Government implementing austerity policies totally at odds with the views of most Labour members and affiliated trade unions. Ellen Morrison asked how she could credibly ask disabled members to participate in such a consultation when they are now facing the consequences of devastating cuts to disability benefits, which of course they were not consulted on – this did not receive a satisfactory response. Jess Barnard challenged the Government’s adherence to an arbitrary fiscal rule which has led to swingeing cuts to public services, while military spending has been increased, and highlighted how frustrating this is for members. Other NEC members commented on the need for Party members and affiliates to be able to contribute on a broad range of policy issues and not be overly restricted by the process.
Devolution Paper
The Party is consulting members on a new Labour Party modernisation review to look at the Party’s structures and processes, allegedly to ensure the Party has the structures and integrated processes we need to deliver winning election campaigns across new regional and local governance structures. A key concern of ours is that people close to the leadership want to reduce the policy autonomy of Labour Mayors, which would reduce their responsiveness to the people who elected them. Given the Party is currently committed to austerity, this would be another self-defeating development. Jess Barnard pointed out that the current proposed consultation for members lacked any questions focusing on the accountability of elected representatives to Party members and the need to ensure they reflect policies members support, which received the response from the right of the Party that apparently members and CLPs are genuinely not concerned about such things.
Keir Starmer Report
Yasmine Dar expressed opposition to the cuts to international aid, highlighting the damage this will do to some of the poorest people in the world. Ellen Morrison challenged Keir Starmer on the welfare cuts, emphasising that many disabled members are terrified right now about what is to come in terms of social security. The responses were unsatisfactory and it is clear that these policy positions are out of step with the vast majority of members.
Unfortunately we were not able to scrutinise the Prime Minister further because the Chair (Ellie Reeves MP) ignored both Jess and Gemma, despite having our hands up ahead of others who were taken, so for blatantly factional reasons. If the Chair had allowed questions from your elected representatives on the left, Jess would have challenged him on the ongoing military assistance, surveillance and arms sales the Government is providing to the state of Israel, and Gemma would have challenged the impacts of the welfare cuts on people with mental health- related disabilities.
Finally, the Chair gave a presentation on the Party’s electoral messaging for upcoming elections, with a focus on that “people voted for change”. We were concerned to see that a key message being championed by the leadership is that Labour in government have carried out the “highest number of deportations in half a decade”. We have been clear that using refugees and asylum seekers as a political football only fans the flames of the far right.
Jess Barnard, Gemma Bolton, Yasmine Dar are all CLP representatives on Labour’s NEC. They were reelected in 2024 with the support of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance.