The first substantive item at the full NEC meeting on 26
March was David Evans’ report as General Secretary. David said he was
disappointed that the General Election had not been called for 2nd
May as the staff were all ready to fight it. Now the local elections and
General Election would be fought sequentially. There was a live possibility
that Sunak would lose control of the Tory party and be forced into a June or
July election to forestall a leadership challenge. Tory digital and print spent
had increased immensely, showing they had been ready for a May election, but
bottled it. Restrictions on staff leave were being kept in place so that we remained
on an election footing. The internal task forces had completed that General
Election budgets and staffing registers for the short campaign.
David said we were now fighting local election and a
parliamentary byelection in Blackpool South on 2nd May. There were three
very tough mayoral contests in East Midlands, West Midlands and Tees Valley.
The new HQ had been refurbished and six of the regional parties had moved into
new or refurbished premises. Labour Central, the party’s back office hub in
Newcastle, had also been refurbished. Fundraising was going well, with 30% of
members donating in addition to their membership fees. David commended Teddy Ryan,
the South East Regional Director, who had been so successful in raising donations
from businesses that he was subsidising other regions. The Party’s lottery was
now raising £300,000 a year. CLPs and Regions have been given QR codes enabling
them to keep half the income from each lottery ticket they sell. Membership was
now 366,604, of whom a historically low proportion, 11,713, were in arrears.
David said there were increasing concerns about the security
of elected members, staff, members and volunteers, and he had met all the
relevant government agencies. He was pushing them to remove and distinction
between the protection MPs get when they are engaged in parliamentary business
and when they are engaged in party business, as the threat level is the same.
There had also been cyber attacks by foreign state actors and individuals, so information
security was a high priority. Unfortunately, different police forces take
different stances on MP and councillor security. We want national standards
applied and in the short campaign each party has a senior police officer
attached to them enabling us to escalate concerns very quickly.
In the Q&A I said that communication with CLPs and unsuccessful
candidates in the non-battleground selections had not been satisfactory and had
detracted from the selection of excellent and diverse candidates. David
committed to improving communications with both candidates and CLPs about the
remaining selections.
He said that publicity making claims about abuse of the
Anonyvoter system used for online voting in selections was “fake news” and completely misplaced and misdirected, and that nothing that had happened in the Croydon
East selection related to Anonyvoter.
He responded affirmatively to a request from Gurinder Josan
to support Muslim stakeholders engaging with their communities following the
Gaza war.
He agreed to change the deadline date for contemporary
motions to Women’s Conference so that meetings to pass motions could happen at
a reasonable time during the year.
He said Labour would take a tough line on any Labour MP
accepting donations from Owen Jones’ “We Deserve Better” initiative, as this was
also funding Green and independent candidates.
He said that in Government we would change the remit of the
Electoral Commission to focus it on enfranchising the maximum number of voters,
whereas the Tories had tried to supress turnout with the new ID requirements
and rule on needing National Insurance numbers on postal vote applications.
Next, Deputy National Campaign Coordinator Ellie Reeves MP
reported on the local election campaign. She said the Government was at the mercy
of events as there was continuous leadership challenge speculation. The Budget
had not moved the Labour poll lead. The Tories were putting party before country
with the fiscal irresponsibility of their £46 billion in tax cut promises. Their
Rwanda deportations policy was now centre stage and was under scrutiny over cost
and effectiveness. They could lose control of the General Election date, so we
have to be ready to fight one at any time. The four pillars of our campaign
were that the country needs change, the Tories have failed, Keir has changed
Labour, and we have a plan for long term change.
Ellie said we would treat the three key mayoral contests like
byelections. There was a political lead in each one: Steve McCabe MP in West
Midlands, Lord (Vernon) Coaker in East Midlands, and Julie Elliott MP in Tees Valley. There were also target councils we were directing
activists to via www.events.labour.org.uk.
MPs were being asked to make three campaign visits to these battlegrounds
during the recess and two more after that.
We had launched a new site for sharing social media
content: www.social.labour.org.uk.
Morgan McSweeney reported as Elections Director. He said
Council Tax was up because the Tory government had systematically under-funded
social care. We had been ready for a 2nd May General Election and
would remind voters of the change they could have had if the Tories had not bottled
it. We had strong policies to offer around growth, devolution, the NHS
(especially access to GPs and dentists), and law and order. We would apply our
national policy missions to local council areas, particularly in those parliamentary
battleground seats that are in the three key mayoral areas. These would be challenging to win as the East Midlands one was a new mayoralty and the Tory incumbents
in West Midlands and Tees Valley were running on a narrative of opposition to their
own government! This was the smallest set of council seats up for election in
each four year cycle. A plurality of them were already Labour. We had already
maxed out gains in many of these areas. The incumbent Government usually gains
council seats in a General Election year. The Tories are only defending 800 council
seats. Because of the Police and Crime Commissioner elections, every voter in
England and Wales has a vote. The Tories have changed the goalposts by
increasing spending limits and changing the mayoral electoral system to First
Past the Post. Sunak is saying these elections are about sending a message to
Labour, but councils are going bust because of national government funding cuts.
There is no read across from Ben Houchen and Andy Street’s personal votes as
mayors to what might happen in a General Election.
As I am the NEC link member to Labour International, our
CLP for overseas members, I asked about measures that could be taken to secure
more votes from overseas voters, many of whom are newly re-enfranchised. Ellie
said that our most powerful tool in this regard was asking our members to
remind relatives living overseas to register. The focus needed to be on those
who were entitled to register in marginal constituencies. Morgan said that
frontbenchers could reach overseas voters through appearances in expat specific
media.
Morgan said that the London Mayor and Assembly contest did
not require as much central support as the three previously mentioned because
the London CLPs have such large and active memberships. In contrast, additional
funding, digital effort and staffing were going into Scotland, which has historically
had smaller membership CLPs.
He said within the battleground seats there was a focus of resources
on the core battleground, the seats which were neither easier to gain nor the most
stretching targets, but that would give us a working majority.
Keir Starmer then gave his Leader’s report. He reiterated
that the organisation had been ready for a 2nd May General Election,
but this was still a really important set of elections. We had to keep focused
and keep the momentum going, as a one or two seat parliamentary majority
requires a bigger swing than Labour got in 1997. We must avoid complacency due
to the large poll leads as that would drive down turnout. He had attended Sadiq
Khan’s campaign launch and had campaigned
with the new First Minister Vaughan Gething in North Wales. Vaughan’s election was
a historic moment, the first black leader of any government in Europe. It would
be amazing to have a Labour Government in Westminster working with the devolved
administrations, not holding them back. Keir thanked Mark Drakeford for his years
of service, especially during the pandemic. He repeated the need to keep
focused and disciplined through to 2nd May and then through the summer.
In the Q&A, Keir said there would be an anti-poverty
strategy from day one of a Labour Government.
On the Gaza UN Security Council vote, he said the US and Israel
now had different public positions. This reinforces Labour’s decision to call
for an immediate ceasefire. Our motion in the last parliamentary debate had
been proven to be the correct policy stance. There are one million civilians in
Rafah, they need a ceasefire, the hostages need to be got out, and aid needs to
go in, and there needs to be a foot in the door for a political process for a
two state solution. It would be a Labour Government’s solemn duty to drive the
two state agenda politically. But the fact that fighting is still going on despite
the UNSC vote shows that just calling for a ceasefire doesn’t make one happen.
Keir said he was committed to the New Deal for Working People
and dignity at work. Good terms and conditions led to higher productivity, so
this was part of our strategy for building a stronger economy. He had told the
TUC Labour was pro-business and he had told business conferences that we were
pro-union and would bring in the New Deal.
On house building, he said the plight of young people,
paying a fortune in rent or stuck with their parents as mortgages were
unaffordable, was appalling, and a commitment to house building was a key
dividing line with other parties.
He said he was against fire and rehire, wherever it is,
including if the employer is a Labour council.
He said Sunak cannot put himself in the shoes of people who
are struggling, and the fact the Tories are leaving the country worse than they
found it is unforgivable.
He said Frank Hester’s abusive comments about Diane Abbott
were racist and misogynistic and it was shocking that Sunak had sent ministers out
to argue they weren’t. Diane had suffered abuse for decades and she was a trailblazer
as the first black woman MP. However, there was a separate process about Diane’s
own remarks in the letter to the Observer. He could not comment on individual
disciplinary cases as that would be going down the slippery slope that had led
his predecessor to the EHRC Report. But there are reasons why some cases take a
long time. There has to be a formal fact-finding investigation. Then a chance
for the person accused of breaking the rules to respond. They don’t always play
ball within the time frame and you can’t move on until they do. In most cases,
once it has been established that something wrong happened, and a sanction has
been determined, there is then a decision to be taken before the whip is
restored to establish what the person needs to do to come back into being a
Labour MP, e.g. an apology, or training, or accepting the findings. Individuals
sometimes don’t cooperate with these requirements.
Votes for the Greens, Lib Dems and smaller parties help the
Tories and make it more difficult for Labour to remove the Tory government. The
Greens would not take the country forward. There was a straight choice between
a transformative Labour Government or rewarding the Tories for 14 years of failure
with another 5 years in power.
We then received a report on the Bernie Grant Leadership Programme,
which was about nurturing Black talent in the party. 30 participants had been
chosen from 528 applications. It was a bespoke programme with a lot of resource
and staff time put into it. The next cohort would have a wider BAME profile, rather
than being specifically Black.
We approved a new code of conduct on disablism. As a
disabled member, I thanked Disabled Rep on the NEC Ellen Morrison for her hard
work with staff to bring forward this important set of protections.
Angela Rayner then gave her Deputy Leader’s report. She
thanked Mark Drakeford and commented on Vaughan Gething’s election. She
commended our incumbent mayors for their work on policy areas such as bringing
buses back into public control, and tackling violence against women and girls,
and challenged us to imagine how much more could be done if the mayors were
working hand-in-hand with a Labour government. She was launching a plan to tackle regional inequality
and highlighted how the Tories had changed funding formulas to take money away
from the most deprived local authorities and give it to the most affluent. She
said Michael Gove’s proposals around counter-extremism needed very careful
scrutiny as they might have unintended consequences. The New Deal for Working
People was creating headlines and it was important to note that it was polling
incredibly well. Angela said she, Keir and Rachel were pro-worker and
pro-business, the two go hand in hand. The New Deal will be central to our economic
mission. In the Q&A I commended Angela on the dignified way she had dealt
with abusive comments and a very invasive book by Lord Ashcroft, and said she
had the whole NEC’s solidarity.
Finally, we considered the BAME Labour development plan. A
major finding of the Forde Report was the need to get BAME Labour back on its feet,
as it has been moribund since 2018 and so the party has lacked an effective
BAME affiliate. There had been problems getting membership and financial
records, so it was proposed to appoint an interim committee which would get
BAME Labour back on a stable governance footing, get it campaign-ready for the
General Election, and organise an AGM. Unfortunately, it was not possible to
agree this at the meeting, as colleagues from the trade unions wanted a period
of consultation, so there was a vote by 13 to 10 to defer the paper until the
May NEC. I was one of the 10 who voted to move forward immediately.
