See below for a report from the Labour Party NEC Organisation Sub-Committee meeting held 21st January 2021 from the Grassroots Voice NEC CLP representatives team: Gemma Bolton, Yasmine Dar, Nadia Jama, Laura Pidcock, Mish Rahman.

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Grassroots Voice NEC Report – Organisation Sub-Committee 21st January 2021

Election of Chair & Vice Chair

We had another election of Chair and Vice of the Organisation Committee, the left NEC candidates put forward, were the incumbent chair Andy Kerr (CWU) and vice chair Howard Beckett (Unite), unfortunately, we lost out on the vote – the new chair elected was Wendy Nicholls (Unison) and vice chair was Michael Wheeler elected (USDAW) Vice Chair.

Forde enquiry

Whilst this item hadn’t been on the agenda, the General Secretary wanted to discuss the delayed report in that he asked permission from the NEC members to contact the Forde Inquiry and request that they work to a deadline of the 31st January to produce the report to the NEC.

We have raised this in a number of meetings and via email, so we were really pleased that the whole of the NEC agreed to this request.  We will provide a further update as soon as we can.

Ensuring High Quality candidates

One of our first questions was to ask, why this paper was necessary – had there been significant problems that required this additional level of scrutiny?  There were a number of examples provided by other NEC members, as to why they felt it was necessary.  We then attempted to raise a number of amendments to the paper.

One of our suggested amendments related to convictions in particular, including wording around spent convictions, under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, in that this would not normally prevent anyone from being a candidate. This was VOTED DOWN.

We asked for more clarification to define how a candidate can ‘embarrass’ themselves or the party – this is highly subjective, we proposed an amendment again this was VOTED DOWN.

There was a clause that allowed the General Secretary to remove the endorsement of any nominee on the recommendation of the Regional Director  –  we requested that they add and the “approval of the Chair of the NEC Organisation Committee’’ to bring this decision back into the NEC Committee, this too was VOTED DOWN.

Our view has not changed – we believe this paper restates those powers with a tone that is highly problematic. Highly discouraging tone and potential negative outcomes affecting disabled people, working class people, BAME people. It could also intensify domination of professionalised, career-oriented people standing for elected office, at a time when our party needs working class, unionised members of Parliament with lived experiences. The whole system ultimately rests on a value judgement. It increases incentives for false or malicious accusations which are already a key contributor to toxifying party culture. The tone and focus of it also gives people low incentives for being truthful about anything contradicting the form.

The sentence ‘The form below represents the NEC’s expectation for high quality candidates’ contradicts the subsequent part where it says ‘While I understand that answering ‘yes’ to any of the above does not automatically disbar me from being a Labour Party candidate’ -. it doesn’t actually spell out what the circumstances that would/wouldn’t lead to a candidate being barred are. Defining a ‘high quality candidate’ in these terms is absurd.

Out of the 9 CLP representatives only the GV5 CLP reps voted AGAINST this paper.

Liverpool Mayoral Selection

There were suggested changes to the panel structure for the Mayoral selection together with a timetable agreed.

We requested an extension to the self nomination period to ensure it was more inclusive, in particular for women candidates; this was not accepted.  (We felt 7 days was too short, and could result in women candidates missing out –  as well as other equality groups).

Data Access

This paper was to update the rulebook on what data different stakeholders in the party can use and clarifying what data can be used from what purpose. The paper passed with some small amendments.

Young Labour National Committee Equalities Positions

The whole of the NEC voted to support the changes for the Young Labour equality position.  Lara McNeil the Youth Rep, welcomed this and stated it was long overdue, particularly that liberation reps should have been elected such a long time ago, that some were now in their early 30’s, above the age of eligibility.

Boundary review working group

A paper was brought to discuss setting up a working group on boundary reviews, it wasn’t clear how the group had been determined – but Ann Black suggested that rather than her being on the working group, she would like Luke Akehurst to take her place, as the CLP Rep.  There was no vote to agree or disagree with this change.

CLP’s in Special Measures

There were a number of CLPs in special measures – we asked about roadmaps for those CLPs and noted how special measures appear to affect BAME populated areas. We raised some concern around some of the wording used in the paper and wanted to be sure that there were no vexation claims against members, we were reassured this was not the case, Effort to work with the CLPs to progress them out of special measure, was key.

CLP motions

We had been assured prior to the meeting that a motion that had not been progressed from last November from Sheffield Central CLP on a trial for disabled candidates in local election, would be discussed. In any event our Disabled Rep spoke towards the motion and everyone was in agreement that this should progress and that we should find a way for it to happen. Angela Rayner voiced her support in making this happen.

We noted that there were a number of motions that had been brought before us, regarding the EHRC – we questioned how this was possible given the ‘guidance’ that the General Secretary has sent a number of times to CLP and BLP chairs and secretaries.

We raised the distress and anguish suspensions have caused many members and whilst we were certainly not advocating for the 3 CLP officers of the 3 motions on our agenda, we pointed out the inconsistency and unfairness to those that had been suspended from the party.

The General Secretary acknowledged this inconsistency and reminded the NEC members that the delegated powers that had initiated this guidance last year, could be revoked at the request of the NEC.  We are in the process of arranging a motion and letter to this effect – we will keep you posted.

Appointment of NPF vacancies

We then put our names forward for the following positions that had vacancies:

Nadia Jama: Justice and Home Affairs

Mish Rahman: International

AOB

We reminded the committee of the desire under the previous Equalities Committee Chair to increase our engagement with more stakeholders, through roundtables. It’s clear from the Labour Muslim Network, who attended the last equalities committee, that lots of concerns were not being addressed.  The current format of having the groups report back for 5 mins, is not sufficient. We recommended that this was reviewed and separate meetings or a process for stakeholders to feed into the equalities committee to ensure stakeholders have more time to present and discuss – as well as ensuring the equalities committee, as a sub committee, is properly structured with named members, as well as allowed elected NEC members to discuss other matters.  The point was noted but not responded to, we will raise it in the next equalities committee.