Labour Representation Committee

A movement formed by trade unionists and socialists to secure a voice for socialists within the Labour Party, the unions, and Parliament.

Labour, Marx and 21st century socialism: an interview with John McDonnell

David Broder, Chris Ford and Mladen Jakopovich spoke to John McDonnell about his campaign for the Labour leadership as well as what socialism means to him. What led to your decision to stand for the Labour leadership? Tony Blair announced that he was going before the last election, and he did that as a defensive reaction to what was going on in the opinion polls and on the doorstep where people were anxious that he should leave and depart the scene. When he announced that he was going, the view was then discussed as to whether the left should run a candidate, and there was extensive discussion...

McDonnell campaign launch

Over 100 people attended the rally to launch John McDonnell's leadership campaign in Manchester last Thursday. The platform included Tony Benn, Alice Mahon and Jeremy Dear, General Secretary of the NUJ.

John McDonnell was eager to dissociate himself from the Blair-Brown punch-up going on...

Stop Blair and Brown: An appeal to the unions

Dear Brothers and Sisters, There are times when politics is in flux, when resolute action, or, alternatively, gutless inaction, shapes the future. Now is such a time. Tony Blair’s “retirement agenda”, what he wants to do in his last period as prime minister, is thoroughly reactionary. He wants to complete the destruction of the National Health Service which Thatcher began 25 years ago. “Market forces” within the Health Service are working increasingly to disintegrate it. You know that as well as we do. Everyone who pays attention to politics knows it, too. NHS patients are being made painfully...

Will the Labour left challenge Brown?

By Colin Foster IT is eighteen years now since the last open and direct challenge to the ever-more-right-wing leadership in the Labour Party. We have paid a very high price - in lack of overall political perspective for struggles on different issues, in demobilisation of activists, and in the growth among the general public of the idea that all politics is a waste of time — for those 18 years of deference. Now the long deference is ending. The conference, on 22 July, of the Labour Representation Committee, a significant minority in the Labour and trade union movement, is set to launch a new...

Socialists challenge the Blair-Brown show

Edited extracts from a statement issued by Labour Party socialists after the local council elections... “A string of policies have turned our own supporters against us. From the Education Bill, privatisation of public services, the cuts in the NHS to the war in Iraq, we’ve alienated our natural supporters. “Voters stay at home, party members resign, small cliques around Blair and Brown vie for power and position. Decision making is centralised, with policies handed down from on-high. “These results demand that we launch a serious challenge for Labour’s future - a challenge to transform the...

Labour Party conference

Motion passed at AWL conference 29-30 April 2006. This AGM calls on comrades to look at the possibilities of becoming delegates to this years Labour Party Conference, either through affiliated Unions or local Constituency Labour Parties.

What we do - the Labour Representation Committee

The Labour Representation Committee (LRC) is a movement formed by trade unionists and socialists to fight for the principle of labour representation within the Labour Party, the unions and parliament. As of 2005, four unions - the post and telecom workers' CWU, the railworkers' RMT, the firefighters' FBU, and the bakers - are affiliated. Workers' Liberty had been arguing and campaigning for a new Labour Representation Committee since 1998, so when the present LRC was formed in July 2004 we naturally gave it full support. Individuals, trade union branches, CLPs and other organisations can join...

Big crowd at RMT conference

By Chris Ford and Pat Markey Over 300 people attended the conference on working-class political representation sponsored by the rail union RMT on 21 January, and another 100 or so were unable to get in because the hall at Friends Meeting House in London was full. The large attendance — despite the lack of publicity for the event even inside the RMT — shows the interest in the question among activists. RMT General Secretary Bob Crow opened the conference by stating there “needs to be a debate about whether the Labour Party can be changed. I think it can’t”. There is no prospect of convincing...

A new workers’ party?

By Rhodri Evans The Socialist Party has launched a “Campaign for a New Workers’ Party”. It has put out a statement which says many true things about the badness of the Blair-Brown Labour Party and the need to restore an independent workers’ voice in politics ( http://tinyurl.com/btaq9 ). Unfortunately, it is hard to see how this campaign can achieve more than a few extra sympathisers or members for the Socialist Party. It will divert from, rather than contribute to, the necessary battles to mobilise the broad labour movement for the cause of independent working-class political representation...

Use union link to force change

Alan Johnson, the Blairites’ favourite ex union leader, has made a call for the unions’ influence in the Labour Party to be curtailed. Johnson, once general secretary of the post and telecom union CWU, and now Industry Minister, has proposed that the union vote at Labour Party Conference be cut from 50% to 15% (Times, 14 November). As Tony Woodley, general secretary of the TGWU, put it: “It is no coincidence that the Blairites want to change the make-up of the conference and party since they’ve been losing votes.” Labour’s affiliated unions should rise to the challenge. Ideological arguments...

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