The Black Lives Matter movement has achieved the unlikely. It has achieved a focus on the lives of black people particularly in the USA and here in the UK. It even resulted in the UK Government commissioning a report on racial inequalities. The publication of the report of the ‘Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities’, the Sewell Report, was widely reviewed and criticised for its rejection of notions of institutional and structural racism. In simple terms it suggested that those black people who have not succeeded have only themselves or their culture to blame.

Any economic or social progress made by the black community cannot be disentangled from issues of social class and gender. It is not only the institutional and structural racism that impinge on black progress but the fact that the black community has so little influence or power as a result of its class position. In simple terms it is the daily struggle of life that is the primary focus.

However, the Black Lives Matter movement has led to a number of grassroots movements in the UK attempting to tackle endemic racial and class inequalities.

In my own city of Derby, black women as local grassroots political organisers have developed a local movement and even proceeded to produce a Black Lives Matter Manifesto for Derby. Local black women have acted as key players in a movement for social change and have ‘got on board’ with the local council and many state, faith and voluntary organisations. Little by little, progress is being made.

Hope for larger scale fundamental institutional and structural change is some way off. A progressive black movement needs social class issues to be at the fore. These intersect lives like never before.

• Cecile Wright, CLPD Executive Committee and member of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee

The Scottish Labour Women’s Committee has been meeting online throughout the last 18 months. Supported by the Scottish Labour Party office, we have hosted regular zoom calls with speakers, and were able to bring Women’s Officers  together to promote closer working across constituencies. A well-attended call prior to the Scottish Parliament elections gave us strong policy input to the Scottish Labour manifesto, and the Party published a Women’s Manifesto too. Over the summer sessions have been organised, including with Scottish Labour Unions, to support and encourage women to stand for selection as local government candidates. Despite the continuing impact of the Covid emergency, we are pleased to have been able to work with, and support, women across the Party. Frequent email newsletters are sent out to all women Party members. More than half the CLPs in Scotland were represented at the recent online UK Annual Labour Women’s Conference, and feedback on that is being collected.

Due to European elections, the 2019 General Election, and the pandemic, we have not been able to hold a Women’s Conference since November 2018. Preparations are now underway for an in person one day Scottish Women’s conference in Glasgow at University of Strathclyde on Saturday 20 November, with the call for delegates and motions going out shortly. At our Conference Labour women from the constituencies, Women’s branches, trade unions and other affiliates will debate policy, plan for the local government 2022 elections, and elect a new Committee, a CAC, and reps directly elected onto Labour’s Scottish Exec and onto the Scottish Policy Forum. Women’s voices, accountable to the Women’s conference.

Building an effective Scottish Labour Women’s Organisation was amongst former Leader Richard Leonard’s top commitments, and rapid progress has been made on the structures needed to support that. The 2021 Women’s Conference will have no shortage of topics to debate, and women members in Scotland are encouraged to attend, and to make sure your union, CLP and Women’s Branch have filled their delegate places. Visitors welcome too. Deadlines are tight, but we are all working for a good turnout. Motions deadline Monday 25 October and delegate registration deadline Monday 1 November.

Get involved!

• Ann Henderson, Scottish Labour Women’s Committee representative on the National Women’s Committee (contact ahendersonlab@gmail.com)

Annual conference saw significant victories for foreign policy motions – a clear sign that opposition to illegal foreign wars remains strong as ever among party members and trade unionists. Likewise, a clear commitment to nuclear disarmament was visible, with five CLPs submitting an emergency motion on AUKUS, the newly announced military deal between the UK, US, and Australia, only days before the deadline for emergencies.

Two composites were debated, on Israel-Palestine (I-P) and Afghanistan, together with an emergency comp on AUKUS. There were also two reference backs, sadly unsuccessful, on the section of the NPF report on Israel-Palestine which was weak and failed to adequately reflect International Policy Commission discussions.

Thirteen CLPs submitted motions on I-P resulting in an excellent composite, moved and seconded by Young Labour and Wolverhampton SW and supported by conference despite opposition from Labour’s front bench. It called on Labour ‘to stand on the right side of history’. It:

• condemned ‘Israel’s militarised violence’
• called for annexations to stop and an end to apartheid, and
• pressed Labour to ‘adhere to an ethical policy on all UK trade with Israel, including stopping any arms trade used to violate Palestinian human rights and trade with illegal Israeli settlements.’

The AUKUS composite opposed the pact despite Keir Starmer’s welcome for the PM’s announcement. Moved and seconded by Shipley and Brighton Pavillion, it was composited from submissions by five CLPs and achieved 70.35% on a card vote. A total of 77,78% affiliate votes were case in favour, with the GMB and a few smaller unions on the Party’s right voting against.

The Afghanistan composite, moved and seconded by Association of Labour Councillors and Putney CLP focussed on refugee crisis, rightly calling for continued pressure on the government for safe and secure routes of asylum for refugees fleeing Taliban rule from Afghanistan, and the protection of Afghan women and girls’ human rights by increased funding for NGOs.

The ignominious end of a 20-year military engagement in Afghanistan made annual conference a good place to take stock of Labour’s approach to foreign policy. However, the composite failed to tackle the role of the invasion by the UK, US and others in precipitating a conflict in which over 171,000 Afghans lost their lives and considerably more died as a result of disease, starvation and other indirect causes.

Afghanistan marks an historic defeat for the US and Britain. The UK has unsuccessfully invaded three times before in recent history – in the 1830s, the 1870s, and 1919. The Soviets invaded in 1979, the US and NATO in 2001. Every single invasion has been unsuccessful. We must learn the lessons of history.

Sadly, there’s little recognition of this by parliament or the Labour leadership. A few Labour MPs led by the Socialist Campaign Group are calling for an end to military adventures like Afghanistan. As the SCG argues, the responsibility for the disastrous situation in Afghanistan lies primarily with the occupiers. ‘The fact of the invasion, not the manner of its ending, has driven the crisis.’

Under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, Labour’s 2019 manifesto promised a shift in foreign policy. Emphasising the primacy of peace and conflict resolution, it committed Labour to working with multinational institutions, upholding international law and defending human rights.

Conference reasserted its support for this approach in a variety of motions. If we are to avoid future disasters, the Labour leadership has to learn these lessons too.

• Carol Turner, Co-Chair of Labour CND and a member of Stop The War Officer Group, author of Corbyn and Trident: Labour’s continuing controversy.

At Labour Women’s Conference in June 2021, the six left candidates from Grassroots Labour Women, of which CLPD was proud to be part, and Momentum were elected to the six CLP places by a landslide. Those women are now making their presence felt and have elected Ruth Hayes, from Unite and Labour Women Leading, as Chair. Mandy Clare, CLPD Executive Committee Member and newly elected CLP rep on the Labour Women’s Committee, reported back from their first meeting: https://www.classactivist.com/class-and-power/sept-2021-nawc-report.

And Mandy has provided an update on Women’s Committee activity here:

At the first Women’s Committee (WC) meeting I shared with members that I had run a short survey in response to some concerns and feedback raised by delegates to Women’s Conference 2021 and that I would be circulating a summary report and some recommendations for us to discuss and agree as appropriate to pass on to WCAC, NEC and others as appropriate in order to help guide any learning, training or improvements for our next Annual Women’s Conference.

WC members agreed that we would prefer to meet much sooner than the suggested next meeting date of January 2022, not least in order to begin to exercise political oversight of the arrangements for the next Women’s Conference, but we have not yet been informed of when our next meeting will be.  In the meantime I have been in touch with our Women’s Officer.  I have sent the report and recommendations and asked for the report to be circulated to the other members of WC, WCAC and also asked our Chair for time to be allocated on the next agenda for discussion of these recommendations as well as any others members may wish to bring.

My report hasn’t been circulated as yet but here is a short version of the list of recommendations included within it.  They are in direct response to issues raised with me by delegates and are intended to enable us to continue to secure as democratic and participative a Women’s Organisation as possible.

Motions and Compositing

Grouping of motions – clarity and Women’s Committee involvement

Layers/accountability re motion competency and appeals

Training re motion competency and review of process

How appeals are heard – review – should be in person not by email

Process for WC and officers to determine fringe event eligibility/fairness

Length of compositing meetings – sufficient time and prep

Clarity of guidance/training for Chairs + option of having a trained WC member present

More supportive process in advance of compositing for members

Composite Meeting ‘Culture’ – Reiterate from outset that meetings ‘belong’ to delegates

Follow-up Review of attendees experiences of each compositing process and culture

Proposed draft composites under consideration not limited to those provided by officers

A good practice requirement to section composites where strongly opposing viewpoints – voting on each part separately at conference

Requirement for Compositing Chairs to declare any vested/potential conflicts of interest

Proposed new guidance – requirement to reference evidence for stats/facts quoted in motions

General training upgrade, to include opening a route for delegate support from the WC

Policy Debate at Women’s Conference

Agenda set by Women’s Committee

80% (rather than 6 out of 17 hours) of time given over to debate

Inclusion of two sign up desks for speakers to balance and ensure breadth of debate and fairness eg one for speaker ‘for’ and one for those ‘against’

Tech Support and Inclusion

Set up meeting with NEC Disability Rep and Disability Labour to discuss this section of feedback (not included in report submitted to Charlotte Gerarda for circulation)

Improve how we set out and publicise Women’s Conference feedback

WC to be involved in design of such

Publish results of such including raw data

Produce SMART actions in response and publish

Applicant, attendee and speaker monitoring data – capture and publish and include categories within under-represented groups not covered by Equalities legislation eg low income women

Target training and support to under-represented members and amend procedures for future conferences, in response

Clear policy and guidelines in place to ensure protection of speakers from abuse

Ex officio places for all WC members, fully funded for those on low incomes

Fringe Event Eligibility

WC with support from officers to review/establish fair criteria and make available to women well in advance of 2022 event

 Women’s Organisation Website

I did a whole section of recommendations re what I suggest should feature on our section of the party website now that we have a Women’s Committee, to make us much more accessible and accountable and add vibrancy and greater democracy to the whole initiative.

Some additional questions:

I asked if I could put to the committee a proposal to establish a Social Class and Low Income Inclusion Subgroup and an Ensuring and Modelling Respectful Debate Subgroup and offered to lead on both of those if agreeable

I suggested we form a Task and Finish Group for upgrading our online presence on the Labour Website as I have a number of ideas for content

I asked how we WC members can be involved in the process of putting together the party’s definition of Transphobia, which I believe is underway

I asked who the Policy Forum Leads are on social class inclusion, poverty and the Poverty Emergency

I asked how WC members can be involved in the online conference evaluation process and feed into that  

Recap of Issues raised/agreed at first WC Meeting:

Frequency of meetings

Cost and access for low income WC members

Terms of Reference amends

More clarity on mechanics of how WC will influence and shape future Womens Conf planning

Ex officio status for WC members attending Women’s Conference (and Annual Conference?)

More evidence to justify continuation of ‘second delegate’ specifications and assumptions

Whether/when we could publicise the Women’s Conference delegate feedback

Confirmation of what income bracket data we currently collate and provision to discuss how we can fill in any data gaps in future

New process for motions from Scottish Women/Regions that by-passes ‘siftings’ and ensures they are heard

Working Class rule changes I drafted for Annual Conference – I asked for a profile boost to these from WC colleagues, for next Women’s and Annual party conferences

We also had a discussion about what the priorities of WC are. Points made – WC has important role in ensuring motions translate into policy but also that our conference and all other processes are as democratically robust as they can be.

• Mandy Clare is a CLP representative on Labour’s Women’s Committee

Labour Women Leading will be hosting their Annual General Meeting online on Saturday 20 November, starting at 12 noon with speakers and discussion on education, covering important issues such as privatisation/academisation, SEND and exclusions. More information: labourwomenleading@gmail.com.