I have certainly had a busy week at GMB Congress in Brighton, with not only the usual hectic conference schedule, but also a series of meetings with activists and officials within the union to plan the next steps in our industrial action against Carillion.
In addition, on Monday I moved a motion from Southern Region committing GMB to opposing the influence of the shadowy organisation with the Labour Party known as Progress. Continue reading
We are all familiar with NewLabourspeak — Orwellian but Modern — that language New Labour used so persistently in government to imply that it was doing something it wasn’t actually doing at all. And then lots of New Labour types repeat it again and again, until you lose the will to live. So it is with Progress “rebuttals”. Like the one they issued today in response the the motion passed at the GMB Congress. Five bullet points – three “rebutting” points that hadn’t been made anyway; one deception and one downright lie. And all directed at the relatively anodyne words of a motion rather than the far more important words of General Secretary, Paul Kenny. Followed by supporters tweets and yet more blogging referencing the non-rebuttal. Continue reading
We have always known that this was a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. But a striking confirmation of this has come from research by the GMB drawing on data from the Electoral Commission and the Register of Members’ Interests. It shows that a quarter of the 1,000 ultra-rich persons in Britain are Tory donors who have donated a total of £83.7 millions to the Tory party. Continue reading
The campaign against Progress operating as a party within a party stepped up a gear today as the GMB Congress passed without dissent a motion highly critical of Progress which it compared with the Militant tendency, and calling for “the national political officer should monitor the factional activity of Progress, and report to the CEC with recommendations.” More importantly, Paul Kenny, in moving a special political statement by the union executive, supported a move to “outlaw Progress as part of the Labour Party“. It is not yet know precisely what is meant by that but it would appear that it goes significantly further than the motion. Continue reading
Last weekend Yorkshire-based trade union-backed Labour campaign, WinningLabour, held its first national day conference. Set up last year, it aims to promote radical and practical debate about how to win back the 5 million votes Labour lost between 1997 and 2010, embracing three core themes. Continue reading
