disabled speak up at the nec
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Paula Peters
26 September at 20:21 ·
Forgive the long post, but after the last few days, and had some time to reflect and think about this post, I am going to say the following:
When DPAC did their workshop on Saturday how to build an inclusive movement at the world transformed festival in Liverpool it was not as well as attended as the previous meeting before it, or at the following workshops the day after.
When Owen Jones spoke last night, people were queuing around the block around the workshop how to build Labour into a social movement.
To be fair to owen jones and Ewa, they mentioned DPAC quite a bit last night during their contributions, but nothing was said about the horrendous impact of the cuts today on people's lives.
I looked around the room and felt sad, for so long on the left disabled people, the BME Community and unemployed people have been marginalised, we get mentions, but never really asked to speak on big platforms, big marches, big meetings and often our workshops are poorly attended.
When we had questions from the floor, I raised this, to give the chair of the meeting his credit, he did come to me first. I said hello, am from disabled people against cuts, and would like to raise the following. When you talk about a social movement, do not forget people like us who have been raising the issues Ken Loach brings up in I Daniel Blake every day.
Said, disabled and unemployed people on JSA live those issues in the film every day, they live in fear of the Job Centre, the live in continual fear of the DWP, the WCA, PIP and the stress is enormous. I then said, its a shame that there is not a disabled speaker on the main platform tonight, that yet again disabled people and people on JSA are marginalised as we learn a lot from all of you here, but, you can also learn a lot from all of us as well,
That it should not just be us who speak about the sharp end of the welfare reforms and the deaths of disabled people and the suicides of people in mental distress. Everyone should be speaking out about it and be completely insensed with rage about it.
Pointed out, human rights abuses are happening every single day to disabled people and people on JSA and yet most of you in this room do not speak out and look the other way. It can happen to any one of you in this room and you can be us.
Stop marginalising us. Support us to speak out, and join in with our anger and joining your voices to ours.
Watch I Daniel Blake, but do not just watch it and say I have seen Ken Loach's new film, and go for a drink and that is it, but take away the anger from it and use it to support disabled people's campaigns, and help us put a stop to it.
I said I know one thing, we have lost so much, we can't take anymore, but most of all I do not want to see any one else die, I do not want to see anyone else in this country hungry or homeless.
Then said if you do not speak out about the tragic human cost of the cuts your silence makes you just as guilty in your silence as the government who are perputrating this abuse against us.
Stand up and be counted, and join your voices to ours. We do not want to be margalinsed on the left, include us. It is nothing about us without us....remember it
Posted by jeffrey davies on 28 September 2016
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oh dear
Patronage beats democracy as rule change means Corbyn loses majority on Labour’s NEC
Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters have protested against the rule changes over NEC nominations [Image: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian].
Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters have protested against the rule changes over NEC nominations [Image: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian].
The right-wingers have achieved their aim and “stitched up” Labour’s National Executive Committee.
The promotion of members of Scottish Labour and Welsh Labour to the NEC means Jeremy Corbyn will lose the support of the majority of the committee – not because a majority of members of those organisations oppose him, but because their leaders do.
I’d say it was shocking that these entitled characters have put their own interests ahead of the United Kingdom, but it is no more than we have come to expect; they’ve been doing it throughout the summer.
Kezia Dugdale, an outspoken Corbyn critic, has already leapt at the opportunity to join the NEC herself, denying Scottish members the chance to elect somebody who genuinely represents their interests.
And Carwyn Jones has said he will nominate the Welsh Labour representative. This means that, even though a majority of Welsh Labour members support Mr Corbyn, their representative is likely to vote against their wishes?
Is that democracy? No. Of course not. As Vince Mills said, it’s patronage. Wales and Scotland have been robbed of their voice by the privileged elite.
And it means two people will be able to disenfranchise more than half a million Labour members, whenever Ms Dugdale and Mr Jones’s puppet decide they disagree with Mr Corbyn.
The vote was rigged – I don’t care what Paddy Lillis has to say about it; there should be a ‘no confidence’ vote heading his way in the immediate future. He deliberately denied members the democratic right to vote on whether the measure should be part of a package of 15 rule changes, or whether they should all be part of a single package.
His action, coupled with claims that left-wingers and supporters of Mr Corbyn were either suspended from the party under suspicious circumstances before conference or simply refused entry when they arrived, casts serious doubt on the legitimacy of the vote.
Amazingly, Mr Jones has described this denial of democracy as a “significant step forward”. Perhaps he would like to explain how it is a “step forward” for him to choose an anti-Corbyn representative on Labour’s decision-making committee, in spite of the wishes of Welsh Labour?
Ms Dugdale said she would be a loud, passionate voice for “Scotland’s interests”. Perhaps she would explain how that is likely to work, considering she’ll be just one voice among more than 30. No, her contribution will be in joining others to backstab her leader whenever she can.
It is a terrible decision and must be overturned at the first available opportunity. When can that be arranged?
Jeremy Corbyn has lost his majority on Labour’s national executive committee after a fierce debate at the party conference, where there were accusations of attempts to rig the balance of the party executive.
Conference voted on Tuesday to adopt controversial rule changes to let Labour leaders in Scotland and Wales nominate one person each to sit on the NEC. The Scottish Labour leader, Kezia Dugdale, will now join the committee as a full member and the Welsh first minister, Carwyn Jones, will also choose a representative.
NEC members wanted better Welsh and Scottish representation at the top of the party, but the extra NEC seats are a key win for the anti-Corbyn faction in the party.
Dugdale and Jones have both been critical of Corbyn. Giving them each the right to sit on, or nominate someone to sit on, the NEC meant Corbyn’s allies lost their majority support on the committee, despite six leftwing candidates being elected to the executive this summer.
At the conference debate, some delegates had earlier called the process a stitch-up and gerrymandering, but the motion was comfortably carried by a vote later on Tuesday.
During the debate, the Momentum activist Max Shanly, a Young Labour delegate, tore into NEC members on stage in the conference hall, saying the party was “attempting to rig the discussion”.
Shanly accused moderate MPs of trying to curb Corbyn’s power and undermine the leadership election result. The change would “gerrymander the NEC”, he said, deriding MPs as “not accountable to this movement”.
Leigh Drennan, the chair of North-west Young Labour, also gave an angry speech, saying the rule change was “essentially a stitch-up of the NEC” to loud applause and cheers from supporters in the balcony.
“It disenfranchises members because it is the leaders who appoint themselves,” he said. “All members should be able to put themselves forward to represent their nation. It’s common sense.”
David Flat, another constituency Labour party delegate, said he was “appalled at the lack of democracy and gerrymandering that’s going on in our party”, which he said was being “bamboozled” into changing the rules.
The leftwing Scottish Labour group, the Campaign for Socialism, condemned the decision on Tuesday and said a new Scottish representative should be elected by members. Spokesman Vince Mills said: “Having a leader place someone on the NEC is an exercise in patronage, not democracy.”
Source: Jeremy Corbyn loses majority support of Labour NEC | Politics | The Guardian
Posted by jeffrey davies on 28 September 2016
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fixed
stan has asked why the local labour party roast at our mps office now we know why they keeping em close so the vote goes their way ouch
Ludicrous. But likely? Latest right-wing plan to undermine Jeremy Corbyn
This just in from Steve Walker of the Skwawkbox blog (latest post here):
“So ludicrous it’s likely true – from a well-placed source.”
160927-latest-rw-plot-against-corbyn
So the right-wingers at the Labour Conference want to keep people out of the hall when Jeremy Corbyn is delivering his speech in order to make it seem as though he has no supporters.
After nearly 62 per cent of voters in the Labour Party gave him a landslide victory in a leadership election?
Wow.
And these are the people who are going to lead us to general election victory?
Please, if you’re attending conference, make sure this silly idea fails to get past the lobby.
If there’s a “shortage of tickets” and you’re told you can’t go in – demand proof that the hall is full. If it isn’t, then kick up a stink about it. Humiliate everybody involved – starting with the person who tried to stop you getting in. Demand to know who told them to do it, and then drag that person into it too. Go right up the chain until you find the ringleaders and expose them.
And tell every mainstream media hack about it, as well.
Then take your seat and enjoy the speech.
Posted by jeffrey davies on 28 September 2016
