Tuesday Briefing

Green New Deal Motion

Clare Hymer, Labour for a Green New Deal

After a long compositing process, two motions calling for a Green New Deal are going to the floor of Labour Party Conference on Tuesday.

Labour for a Green New Deal’s motion – titled ‘Labour’s Socialist Green New Deal’ and composite 17 in CAC Report 4 – calls for Labour to commit to “a state-led programme of investment and regulation, based on public ownership and democratic control, for the decarbonisation and transformation of our economy that reduces inequality and pursues efforts to keep global average temperature rises below 1.5°C”. Crucially, this motion commits Labour to “work[ing] towards a path to net zero carbon emissions by 2030, guaranteeing an increase in good unionised jobs in the UK […] and implementing this target into law if it achieves a just-transition for workers” – a target that would make Labour’s policy one of the most ambitious of any country in the Global North.

We advise that Labour members back this motion when it goes to conference floor, because only a Green New Deal motion with an ambitious decarbonisation target will get us on the right path to transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables. Without this target, any hope of limiting average global warming to 1.5 degrees is lost, and all the other commitments within the motion become meaningless. The labour movement has a huge opportunity to unite behind a motion that brings climate and worker justice together, and we urge you to back the motion.

Housing Composite

Jamie Sweeney, Labour Campaign for Council Housing

The Labour Campaign for Council Housing supports the housing motion and encourage delegates to vote for it. We are in the middle of a housing crisis – 277,000 people homeless, a 165% increase in rough sleeping since 2010, and 1.1 million households on housing waiting lists. This crisis will only be solved through a mass council house building programme. Council housing provides an affordable, secure home for all – social rents are set at around 50% of market rents and tenancies are for life. Building council housing also boosts supply which will help bring private rents and house prices down over the long-term. Councils only built 2640 social rented homes last year compared to a post-war high of 202,891 council homes built in 1953. Labour’s current policy is not ambitious enough and will not solve the housing crisis – the party needs to commit to a mass council house building programme.

This motion commits the party to building at least 100,000 social rented council homes a year and the money to get them built. It also calls for an end to Right to Buy, which has been responsible for the loss of 2 million council homes since its introduction. Please vote for this composite to put council housing at the heart of Labour’s housing policy.

Support Composite 20 to extend rights for migrants

Sasha Das Gupta – Labour Against Racism and Fascism

Support Composite 20 on Immigration. It is essential to extend migrants’ rights, by taking a number of measures including by ending the detention estate, ending ‘no recourse to public funds’ policies, and scrapping all Hostile Environment measures. Detaining migrants is an inhumane and brutal system inflicting unnecessary and unjust measures on often desperate and detitute humans. An end to the detention estate is therefore vital to achieving basic human rights for migrants. Tony Blair’s Labour government extended the detention estate by building more detention centres and creating the fertile ground for the hostile environment to fester. These measures were not reversed under the Brown years, meaning that an aggressive and rampant conservative government were free to ride roughshod over migrant rights. To truly deserve the title of an anti-racist party, Labour needs to right the wrongs of past conservative and Labour governments if we want to win the argument that it is not migrants that are scapegoats for a failed economic system but capital. Supporting this motion will bring about an end to the detention estate, reverse hostile environment policies and see those who currently have no recourse to public funds be able to access welfare.

NCC Vote

Delegates will have the opportunity of voting for three candidates for the National Constitutional Committee (NCC) today. Momentum are supporting the following candidates:#

Jabran Hussain (Bradford West, L0058388). Jabran is a qualified solicitor and Labour Party activist from Bradford.
Gary Heather (Islington North, A006966). Gary is a councillor for Islington and has been a Labour Party member for 30 years.
Stephen Marks (Oxford East, A241053). Stephen is the Policy Officer for Oxford District Labour Party, and former county councillor.

Please note that the NCC is gender-balanced, with candidates elected on a staggered basis each year at Conference. Voting will take place from 9am until 4pm in the Ballot Area.

Yesterday at Conference…

Conference agreed to support CWU’s motion to move towards a 4 day or 32 hour week within a decade, a major step forward for working people to start reclaiming some of the benefits of automation.
On Ethical Foreign Policy, Conference passed a motion rejecting any proposal not based on international law and UN resolutions recognising the Palestinians’ collective rights to self-determination and to return to their homes. The motion also called for an ethical policy on all UK’s trade with Israel, by applying international law on settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, and stopping any arms trade with Israel used in violation of the human rights of Palestinians.
Conference supported a motion condemning the UK government enabling of Saudi atrocities in Yemen.
Conference voted for an NEC statement on Brexit, as well as Composite 14, in a show of support for the leadership position, namely of favouring a referendum with both remain and a negotiated Brexit deal on the ballot, and deciding the Party’s position in that referendum should be at a special 1 day Party Conference.