Labour Representation Committee

On 15 November the Labour Representation Committee meets for its annual conference. The rail union RMT has called a cross-union conference on working-class political representation for 10 January 2009. And Nottinghamshire Trades Council is planning a local trade unionists' meeting on workers’ representation in February 2009. East Midlands RMT branch is involved in this plan, which, like the calling of the 10 January conference, is in line with a resolution carried at the RMT’s conference in June 2008. Significant numbers of activists want to move beyond the current alternatives of sullenly...

The motion below has been submitted to the 15 November conference of the Labour Representation Committee by the AWL, and is also being proposed in other organisations affiliated to the LRC. The LRC notes the following decision by the 2008 AGM of the rail union RMT, affiliate of the LRC: "This union notes the disastrous results for the Labour Party in the May 1st elections. We believe that working class voters have deserted the Labour Party because it has abandoned working-class people through its policies of cuts, privatisation, war and lining the pockets of the rich at the expense of the poor...

Report from The Convention of the Left, meeting in Manchester in parallel to Labour’s conference (20-24 September). Though the organisers had successfully argued against a debate on links between the unions and Labour, the question of political perspectives for the unions ran through many of the contributions to the trade union session. Matt Wrack of the FBU said trade unionists needed a political party and that he was worried by a drift towards the North American system where unions just backed whoever promised to do the best for them on specific issues (an approach supported by Mark Serwotka...

The left in Britain is in crisis. Recent years have seen the tensions caused by this crisis tear through the Socialist Alliance, the Scottish Socialist Party and Respect. Other projects have been even less successful. Within the Labour Party orbit, all left organisations are facing tensions between the Party and the movement — often to be found diametrically opposed. Even the amorphous quasi-left Compass grouping has divided recently. Those of us who are in the LRC should take no pleasure from any of these developments — our own organisation is divided on its orientation to the Labour Party...

A discussion article by Chris Ford (AWL and LRC National Committee) on the current crisis of workers’ representation. Brown’s government is in decline. To many in the labour movement it seems a fait accompli that there will be a Tory government - it’s only a matter of time. Yet for all the natural hatred of the Tories, many who have been on the receiving end of New Labour’s policies can be forgiven for asking, what will change? The Tories and New Labour are different, opposing parties, but they are not absolute opposites. They are both adherents of the neo-liberal consensus, all their...

AWL members will be attending the 2008 conference of the Socialist Youth Network (youth section of the Labour Representation Committee ) and proposing the following motions. For more information, to come with us to the event or to support one or more of our motions, email chrisjmarks@hotmail.com The conference is at University of London Union, 10-4pm, Saturday 29 March. Fight to restore and extend working-class political representation SYN recognises that the decisions taken at the 2007 Labour Party conference in Bournemouth have disenfranchised the affiliated trade unions and CLPs, robbing...

This AGM notes the decision of Labour Party affiliated TUs and CLPs to disenfranchise themselves at the Bournemouth conference, the failure of John McDonnell to get on the ballot paper for Labour Party leader and the collapse of the SSP. We believe that this has brought our class to a position of crisis regarding political representation. The RMT has been active in trying to halt developments like these for several years by supporting at all levels socialist candidates from the LP , the SSP and some independents. What matters most to us is that candidates are democratic socialists fighting for...

Just over fifty people attended the launch meeting of the local Labour Representation Committee in Hackney, East London, on Wednesday 27 February. The meeting was the latest in a string of successful meetings in Hackney, with packed events over the privatisation of the East London Line, John McDonnell’s challenge for the Labour leadership, and opposition to the war in Iraq, and more recently over 100 wishing to oppose the Councils so-called Estate Regeneration Programme. All of them expressions of the potential strength and possibilities for working class resistance to New Labour. The speakers...

Conference believes that it is important for unions to have a political voice. Conference notes with concern the Labour Party's decision at its 2007 conference to ban political motions from unions and Constituency Labour Parties. Conference notes that unions concerned to promote working-class political representation have affiliated to the Labour Representation Committee. LRC affiliates include both unions not affiliated to the Labour Party, such as RMT and FBU, and unions affiliated to it, such as CWU, ASLEF, the Bakers' Union, and the NUM. Conference resolves to affiliate to the LRC and work...

Around 70 people heared John McDonnell speak at a Scottish Campaign for Socialism meeting in Glasgow on 2 February. Speaking on “The Future of the Left” McDonnell’s starting point was that the current economic crisis was a vindication of Marx’s analysis of the nature of capitalism. But the Labour Party, despite the role played in it historically by socialists and revolutionaries, was now dominated by the forces of neo-liberalism. Any opportunity for the Party’s rank-and-file membership and affiliated trade unions to influence Party policy had been largely closed down. The left outside of the...