Some of the text unions put to the conference was typically vague, but some of it was quite clear.You can read all the motions submitted and the composite motions passed here.It actively discouraged protest when Starmer had the conference sing “God Save the King”, with the result that there was almost none (LLI protest in its main bulletin and to the best of our ability on conference floor). Momentum did little to get left-wing motions submitted or organise delegates. The Labour left was weakened by demoralisation and by a wide range of bureaucratic stitch-ups, but the dominant forces on the left also lack strategy and drive.Left activists and MPs went to their picket lines but the Unite delegate did not organise a visit and when the dockers came to the conference, far from mobilising people to join their protest, did not even join it themselves (or organise to take the dockers into the conference). To take one striking example: Liverpool dockers were on strike during the conference. More broadly, unions did little to “make a fuss” at the conference.In the conference itself, unions voted to avoid controversial issue areas, did not challenge manoeuvres to exclude demand that the leadership found inconvenient – notably public ownership of energy – and did not organise or back up challenges against ignoring of existing conference policy. In advance of the conference, the unions did not challenge the expulsion and suspension of delegates, ruling out of motions, etc.Unless we shift things, the leadership will continue to ignore those policies. But the unions voted to passed left-wing motions and did little else to shake things up, despite numerous opportunities. The impact of growing working-class struggle in the UK was visible in the conference, in that it did pass some quite good left-wing policies (see below), mainly from the unions – whose motions could not be bureaucratically carved out as many left-wing CLPs motions were.The left in Constituency Labour Parties has fallen back significantly but the decisive factor was a lack of stroppiness and political strategy from the union leaders. At the conference the Starmer leadership largely got its way.Read Labour Left Internationalists’ bulletins at Labour conference 2022 (24-28 September, Liverpool) here.
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