John Gray’s Blog achieves Historic victory for Socialist Appeal supporters

Friday, March 02, 2007

John Gray’s Blog achieves Historic victory for Socialist Appeal supporters


I attended the Unison London Region Labour Link Forum on Thursday March 1st. The Labour Link election results were announced at the forum unfortunately as one of the candidates I was unsuccessful, this is about my 5th time of trying to get on the committee. However congratulations to all those that did a special mention has to be made of Pam Woods Islington Branch, who got a bigger vote then anyone else for any of the London Labour Link elections, toping the poll for the National Forum seats. Pam is a supporter of Socialist Appeal who ended up, though no fault for her own, on both the slate of the London UNISON Labour Left Network and the rightwing establishment slate for the forum place, as seen on John Gray’s blog. When asked John seemed a somewhat embarrassed but has failed so far to explain why he backed Pam over Marsha the only other left candidates in that particular election, for the one seat the right wing did not have a candidate for.

Congratulations must also go to Helen Martin, Helen was elected to the Regional Labour Link committee, the only left candidate elected to the committee, though both Francis Prideaux and Katrina Hoogendam were also very close to getting on to the committee.Good news and bad news in regard to motions taken at the Forum.

The St Mary Paddington Motion which called for “the National Labour Link Committee to work with M.P’s who support UNISON and Labour Conference Policies to help ensure that our members are not denied the choice to which they are entitled”. The charge against this motion was led by John Gray saying that we cant expect MP’s to nominate someone who would not make a good prime minister (they managed to elect Blair once)! Daniel Nicholls first time delegate to regional forum from London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority branch made a stirring speech for, and said the person UNISON should get behind, who fulfils the criteria in this motion, is John McDonnell.

The motion was passed 7 votes for, 4 against and 2 abstentions out of about 16 delegates.Unfortunately also passed by 9 votes to 7 was a motion from UCLH branch which called for Regional Labour Link elections to take place every two years, it seemed that this was only being proposed in London, because in London we have a contested elections every year (oh dear). This rule change will have to go to the National Forum to be approved, lets hope they reject this undemocratic proposal.

The third and final motion was an excellent motion from Tower Hamlets Branch proposed by John Gary who on this occasion, I entirely agreed with. The Motion was on the London Living wage and is something close to my heart given what has happened with Care UK and the Islington Liberal Democrats (remember them John) administration, it was a shame that the discussion was cut short but, I guess we had been in the room for some time by that point.

Phil Lewis from Camden Branch asked some important questions to the outgoing committee. One about why we had not sent a full delegation to the Greater London Labour Party Conference, the reply was that it would have been to great a cost, why are we happy to spend our money funding constituencies which don’t support our members or UNISON Policies including war mongers like Oona King, but we wont fully participate in the democracy of our party. I wonder is the real reason that the activist who would have attended are on the left of the party.

Phil also asked why they had cut the Constituency Development Plan with Hays and Harlington, John McDonnell’s constituency the answer was somewhat unconvincing.Hazel Blears cabinet minister spoke to the forum, trying on her union credentials, after the chair introduced her as Hazel Blair’s (Freudian slip if I ever heard one!) Blears stated that the Labour Government will implement Warwick, “we only have a few small things to do”, one of which apparently is rights for temporary and agency workers, (not exactly a small issue in London, Hazel,) of course she didn't mention the trade union freedom bill. She also said the reason there need to be cuts in the NHS is to bring down waiting times to a maximum of 18 weeks, get your head around that!

Keith Birch UNISON Labour Link National officer said we had used our influence well in the Labour Party over the last year, sighting Local Government Pensions and the Probation service. Well our members would be surprised to hear that!! Only this week the government voted to privatise probation and in pensions they are still not offering full protection, along with the NHS cuts, not sure our influence is working all that well in reality, and this on the day the government propose a miserly 1.9% cost of living increase for public sector workers!! When asked by Daniel, the star of the forum, about the leadership and any recommendation from UNISON.

Keith responded saying that it would be down to the National Labour Link Committee. He did make a very interesting prediction out of the 6% that will count as UNISON’s vote in the Labour Leadership ballot he suggested 4% for John McDonnell and 1% each for Brown and Meacher, so they know who the members are likely to support, is it not time they got behind John as well!!All together interesting day shame about the election results but then they are not all that open and transparent the way it currently operates in London. I think we should have the elections at the forum like they do in Scotland, East Midlands, Northern and South East and probably the rest of the country, rather than the Shambolic way the London region runs them.