Thursday night's meeting

I haven’t yet had a chance to report back from Thursday’s excellent meeting organised by the Lambeth and Southwark branch of the Labour Representation Committee. So here goes...

I spoke alongside PCS General Secretary Mark Serwotka and former Lambeth Council Leader Ted Knight, with the branch secretary of the local Remploy factory which has been closed in spite of the promises made at Party Conference.

The meeting was chaired by local Party member Nick Toms and attracted over 40 local people, Labour Party and trade union members, to debate the way forward for socialists in the face of economic and environmental crises.

Mark was on top form and reiterated his view that we need to unite socialists outside and inside the Labour Party. He also challenged those of us in the Party as to what we would do where right wing New Labour candidates are being challenged by good socialist or trade unionist candidates – as may happen in Liverpool if local FBU members carry out their plan to stand.

He made the point – in opposition to the sort of things that Derek Simpson says to the TUC General Council – that if the trade unions go on supporting the lesser evil in politics we will never see any progress. PCS have been asking all candidates whether they support Union policies – but members are then coming back to the Union to ask what to do if none of the candidates are supportive.

Mark also reported that PCS will be debating electoral reform at their forthcoming Conference and could become the first major union to back a proportional electoral system.

Sean from Remploy went into details about what is going in the factories and how even those that hadn't been listed for closure cosing down, he spoke about the betrayal by New Labour and how the leadership of the unions had let the members down - but the fight still goes on and I'll post details of the next remploy event when I get them through.

I spoke on how the economic crisis is hitting young people (obviously)

Speakers from the floor, including Southwark Councillor Graham Nardell and several members of the Lambeth UNISON branch joined in the debate. Graham made the point that this LRC meeting was an opportunity for the sort of political debate that wasn’t taking place in the local CLP.

It was a refreshing chance to discuss the failure of Gordon Browns economic policies, growing inequality and climate change and make the links between them, it was also refreshing to discuss the alternative possibilities. It was educational for me but more than that was a varied debate from many comrades.

The meeting was closed by Ted Knight with a rousing call for the left to get organised. Ted said that we shouldn’t feel trapped in the Labour Party and that he had been in and out of the Party, sometimes willingly and sometimes not. He stressed the need for Labour Party members to organise and meet. Listening to Ted is an inspiration.

I was pleased t hear Mark S -quote some of the crap that the general secretaries of the big 4 have been coming out with.

As well as being the very decent hard working GS that Mark is - he needs to assist those of us in bureaucratically governed unions where all the democracy is suppressed to get our members views heard.

UNISON members were quite rightly asking why UNISON weren't going on Strike over the 2.2% offer when PCS are?

I am confident that many members are also thinking along those lines and by Mark taking a clear line that we should be fighting the Government together - it is across the public sector that the Government want to hold down our pay so why aren't all the Public Sector unions fighting it - I hope this will force Prentis et al into actually doing something for our members.

At the moment Prentis thinks that its to much to even have a lobby of parliament to fight the pay freeze!

Apart from the good content of the meeting I was impressed with the make up of the audience with near on half of the audience women, a few SYNers and a good representation from black and ethnic minority comrades - dispelling the myth that sometimes gets said that the LRC is a white male talking shop.

There will be further meetings of the LRC in Lambeth and Southwark – and we need more such meetings around the country.

There is also going to be a LEAPy conference which I'd encourage people to go to - Sat 24 May, 11am-4:30pm, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street