Forming a Women’s Branch in your Constituency Labour Party

A Women’s Branch has the right to:

• send delegates and a motion to the National Women’s Conference
• nominate candidates for the national Women’s Committee
• send delegates to Constituency Labour Party/General Committee meetings, in constituencies where ward-based branches do this
• send motions to the CLP/GC
• send delegates to the democratic Regional Women’s Conferences, where these are set up.

Its rules are set out in the Labour Party Rulebook.

A Women’s Forum that has not become a Women’s Branch will not have a right to do those things – though a sympathetic CLP may agree that they will delegate decisions to the Women’s Forum and endorse them.

It seems that Women’s Branches are not set as a priority within the Labour Party at present, the advice is that only those Women’s Forums already ‘ratified’ or recognised by regional offices can currently be constituted as a Branch. However, now that the elections are over, the priorities need to change, and it is important that Women’s Forums become branches as soon as possible.

The Labour Party guidance for setting up a Women’s Branch is at

https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Guide-for-Transition-to-Women-Branches.pdf

The main steps are:

1. Call an AGM for the Women’s Forum, with 14 days notice (at least) to all women members. If the CLP Secretary or other CLP Executive member has to attend, aim for agreement this is a woman.
2. Agree to constitute as a Branch and elect officers. The Women’s Officer is automatically on the Women’s Branch Executive but need not be Chair.
3. Request the Regional Director and the National Women’s Officer to sign off the Women’s Branch.

Notes:

• The quorum: the Regional Director may want the Branch to agree on standing orders for the branch, including a quorum, before signing off
• The number of delegates to the CLP: Different CLPs have different standing orders, so the aim would be to work out the best arrangement at CLP Level. The NEC advice is for two delegates. However, delegations larger than this have been negotiated with CLPs.
• According to the rules for the National Labour Party Women’s Structure on the Labour Party website, a Women’s Branch can cover more than one CLP, as some Women’s Forums do. In this case, the members of the Women’s Branch will need to meet separately on a CLP basis to agree the delegates and motion for each CLP. These rules are at  https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Rules-for-the-National-Labour-Party-Womens-Structure.pdf
• At present, the Secretary of the Women’s Branch is not automatically provided with access to their branch membership (i.e. all women members in the branch) via access to Organise, as other Branch Secretaries are. It would need negotiation within the CLP either for the Women’s Branch Secretary to be one of those who have access, or for a CLP officer to send emails out in her name. This may appear to discriminate against the Women’s Branch.