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Labour Party Conference 2009

Labour Party Conference: I’ve almost completely avoided political party conferences, which I find intensely boring. Perhaps if I had been commissioned to cover them I would have done so but I think I’ve never really needed the money that much, and I don’t have one of those long heavy and often white lenses that seem to be de rigeur.

So, while I went to Brighton on 27th September 2009 for the Labour Party Conference it wasn’t to photograph the actual conference but for the protest taking place outside the conference centre, and I also photographed a few other things happening around its edges.

Gordon on the Gravy Train etc

Labour Party Conference, Brighton

Labour Party Conference 2009 — *The ‘Vote for a Change’ campaign’s Westminster Gravy Train – and David Cameron in a blue tie at the back*

Sunday was a splendid day with a clear bright blue sky that contrasted with the mood inside Fortress Brighton, surrounded by armed police and anti-tank obstacles where the conference was taking place.

Labour in 2009 was in a state of political turmoil following the financial crash and had come in third place in the European elections in June behind the Tories and UKIP. Local elections had been disastrous with many seats lost and the Tories taking control of many authorities. Labour had been badly hit by the MPs expenses scandal and some Labour MPs were openly calling on Gordon Brown to resign.

The ‘Westminster Gravy Train’ by the Vote for a Change campaign was offering free transport to conference delegates. They called for a break with the “voting system that has left parliament unaccountable and unrepresentative” and for a referendum on electoral reform. Unfortunately the change we got in 2010 was to a disastrous coalition between Tory and Lib-Dems with a brutal and damaging programme of cuts.

Others protesting outside the centre included the Shaker Aamer campaign calling for the release of this UK resident from the US illegal prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where he was still held despite having been cleared for release, people calling for a boycott of Israeli goods, a protest against the Kafkaesque anti-terrorist control orders which allowed the government to impose severe restrictions on people relying on secret evidence in violation of their human rights.

And there were other protests about climate change, housing and more, with many people han ding out leaflets to conference delegates as they made their way into the centre, as well as the main demonstration I had travelled to Brighton to cover.

More on My London Diary at Gordon on the Gravy Train etc.

Jobs, Education, Peace Protest March & Rally

Labour Party Conference, Brighton

*Three orange marine distress flares were set off opposite the Labour Party Conference*

The protest had been called by trade unions and pressure groups – the UCU, NUJ, PCS, NUT, CWU and RMT, Right to Work, Stop the War and Unite Against Fascism – to demand a change in direction over proposals to cut public expenditure – and they had chartered a train to take people from London to the event, while others had come from around the country to join around two thousand on the seafront. I’d got up early to make my own way there by normal rail services.

*Tower Hamlets College “We Fought & We Won”*

For once there was some good news – a month-long strike at Tower Hamlets College had ended in talks at the arbitration service ACAS the previous day with agreement to avoid 25 compulsory redundancies.

But there was no such relief for the workers at wind power company Vestas Blades on the Isle of White who were at the front of the march, inexplicably abandoned by the government when the management decided to close this vital green industry down in the Isle of White and move production to the USA. As I commented then, “the government seems committed to gamble on the unlikely pipe-dream that the dirtiest of power-generation technologies – coal-fired power stations – can be tamed by 100% carbon capture and storage.”

Before the march started there were short speeches, including from a woman from the campaign waged by cleaners and other low paid workers in London for a living wage, another from Youth Fight For Jobs and a final speech from Brighton and Hove District Trades Council welcoming us to Brighton.

*Two rows of barriers a roadway, two rows of police and a hedge between protesters and the conference centre*

Despite this being a predictably peaceful event there was a very large police presence, not always helpful. They routed the march some distance away from the conference centre on the promenade rather than on the road outside and then for its return on the lower promenade more or less out of sight of the centre for the final rally.

On the march was an autonomous group of mainly students with the banner ‘STUFF THE MARKET – TAX THE RICH’ who periodically halted to allow a gap to develop in front of them, working up their chanting to a crescendo before rushing forwards scattering the photographers and videographers in front of them.

*Taken over my shoulder at left as I rushed forward in front of the marchers*

On My London Diary you can read a list of the speakers and an account of the final rally where many speakers expressed their dissatisfaction with the policies of New Labour which had abandoned its working class base. There are also many more pictures both from the march and the rally.

Jobs, Education, Peace March & Rally

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Turkey and Voting Systems

Turkey and Voting Systems – Saturday 25th July 2015, seven years ago today,wasn’t a particularly busy day for me in London, and I covered only three protests. What caught my attention, because of our current political situation was a protest following the May 2015 election over the unfairness of our current voting system. The other two were about repression in another country which has featured greatly in the news recently particularly over the export of grain from the Ukraine, our NATO ally Turkey.

Free Steve Kaczynski from Turkish Jail – Kingsway

Steve Kaczynski, born in Scotland was at one time employed by the BBC World Service as an expert on Turkey. He was arrested in April 2015 during a raid on a left-wing Turkish cultural centre on suspicion of being a British spy and was still in jail without charge, now on hunger strike.

Kaczynski was at the centre to show international solidarity against fascism when it was raided by Turkish police following a hostage incident in a courthouse where a state prosecutor and the two gunmen holding him captive were killed, but there is no evidence that he was in any way involved with the incident.

The Turkish media has made much of rumours leaked by the government that he was a British or German spy, but those who know him find this impossible to believe. His arrest appears to be part of a systematic programme by the AKP Turkish government to intimidate any political opposition.

The protest outside the building housing the Counsellor’s Office for Culture & Information of the Turkish Embassy on Kingsway, close to Holborn Station, included some from the British left as well as the Turkish Popular Front in the UK. Those who knew him described him as a kind and gentle man who abhors violence and has long campaigned for human rights and political freedom. The protesters handed out leaflets to people passing by and made a lot of noise singing and chanting, but the office was closed on a Saturday morning and it was unlikely that there was anyone in there to hear them.

Steve Kaczynski was finally released three months later, after surviving a 61 day hunger strike.

Free Steve Kaczynski from Turkish Jail

Make seats match votes – Old Palace Yard, Westminster

*Great Britain in balloons, viewed from the north-west tip of the Scottish mainland*

The May 2015 General Election resulted in the Conservative Party who got only 36.8% of the votes, just a little over a third, being returned with an overall majority, though only a small one.

*A lone Green balloon on the south coast – and not enough room to put in the London area*

Our first past the post constituency-based electoral system brings in huge differences based on both which party you vote for and the area in which you live. There was a Tory MP elected for every 34, 241 Tory voters, a Labour MP for every 40,290 Labour voters, but a Lib-Dem for every 301,990 Lib-Demo Voters and only 1 UKIP and one Green MP despite their parties getting 3,881,099 and 1,157,630 votes respectively. Two small parties with significant votes got no MPs at all.

A petition had been started before the election by Owen Winter, the independent member of the youth parliament for Cornwall, got over 200,000 signatures in a week or two and their were other similar well-supported petitions on other sites calling for voting reform and a system of proportional representation that would result in a government that reflected how people voted – signed in total by more than half a million people.

The protest included a map of the UK made by balloons of different colours for the various parties holding seats in the UK, which doubtless made sense for anyone sitting in a helicopter above the event but was pretty well impossible to see and photograph clearly at ground level.

After a short introduction, people went through the ‘map’ with pins popping balloons for the constituencies where no candidate got over 50% of the votes. Again this was hard to make visual sense out of at ground level.

What seemed to me lacking – apart from the other 499,000 or so who had signed the petitions – was any clear suggest of how a fairer voting system might work, though on My London Diary I put forward one suggestion which might work as well as retaining some of the advantages of the present system. But almost any system of PR would give us a fairer result than the current one, popular with the Conservatives and Labour as it entrenches their unfair advantage. Although the SNP also benefit from the current system they support electoral reform.

Make seats match votes

Kurds blame Turks for Suruc massacre – Downing St

32 Young activists were massacred by ISIS at Suruc on their way with toys, books and other materials to build a playground, library and other projects in Kobani (or Kobane). Kurds and supporters protested at Downing St, blaming our NATO ally Turkey for supporting ISIS.

*People hold pictures of some of those killed by ISIS*

Kobani is a Kurdish-majority city in northern Syria, close to the Syria–Turkey border, which became a part of Rojava, the autonomous area in the north of Syria under Kurdish control as a consequence of the Syrian Civil War. It was beseiged by ISIS from September 2014 to January 2015, and the defeat of ISIS in the area by the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, backed by US air support was a key turning point in the war against Islamic State.

Turkey has carried out a campaign of repression against the Kurds in Turkey who in return have been trying, sometimes by military means, to free themselves from Turkish domination which treats them as inferior citizens, outlawing their language and culture, and kidnapped and still holds their leader, Abdullah Ocalan. More recently Turkey has invaded parts of Rojava, and the Kobani area accepted the Syrian Army and their Russian support into the area in an attempt to protect it from Turkish invasion.

Turkey allows ISIS to operate on and across their border, as well as assisting them in the smuggling out of oil and other goods through Turkey vital in their economic support. They have also allowed recruits and supplies to reach them through Turkey. They appear to hope that ISIS will solve the Kurdish problem for them by defeating the Kurds in Iraq ad Syria.

After many speeches, including one by Edmonton MP Kate Osamor who has many Kurds in her constituency, they marched off towards the BBC which they say ignores attacks on Kurds and routinely sides, like the British Government with the Turkish government against them.

Kurds blame Turks for Suruc massacre

We Need A New Party

We Need A New Party: If you spend any time thinking about politics in the UK you are likely now to be feeling pretty depressed. We don’t really just need a new party, we need a new system and particularly a new system of voting. First past the post is long past its use-by date.

First past the post (FPTP) was designed to give stable government and also to provide a firm bond between the voters in their constituencies and parliament via their MP. But that is a bond which has in many areas been broken by the actions of the two main parties, particularly in the imposition of party candidates against local opinion. But FPTP has also led to the development of a political class whose experience, aims and interests are often very different to those of the people they supposedly represent.

We Need A New Party - Adam Clifford — *Westminster candidate Adam Clifford speaks in front of Buckingham Palace gates*

Our geographical constituencies also lead to inequalities in the representation of voters, some simply a matter of the ways that populations have grown up around centres of employment, but also the party influences on the drawing of boundaries.

We’ve also seen, particularly since the 1970s, a central government that has increasingly hobbled the activities of local government, with some disastrous effects, particularly over the provision of social housing. The abolition of the GLC was perhaps the most public expression of Westminster’s disdain. Devolution in recent years has done something to reverse this, though not in the English regions, and the introduction of directly elected mayors has largely been ineffectual (and sometimes poisonous.)

We Need A New Party - Ian Bone — *Ian Bone of Class War*

Attempts to form new parties to challenge the rule of Conservative and Labour have been largely unsuccessful, as although the Green Party may have achieved 2.7% of the vote in the 2019 it only ended up with one MP, rather than the 17 an equal election system would have given. There have been many proposals for a better voting system and some which better retain the link between the the elected representative and a local area. But perhaps we need to go further, taking steps that remove the idea of a political class. We should get the continuity of government that we need from a professional and non-political civil service, not from representatives who feel they have a right to continue in office year after year until they become senile.

Labour did offer the electorate a choice in both 2017 and 2019 – and came close to winning in 2017, defeated largely by the actions of party officials and right-wing Labour MPs. Since then the party has lost much of its membership income and has moved towards being a party financed by wealthy individuals, losing much of its connections with the grass roots. It seems to be aiming at becoming a Tory clone in order to win back voters who deserted it over Brexit in 2019.

Perhaps a new party will emerge from those Labour grass roots and others on the left for our next election, and there are some areas where it could become popular, particularly if Labour put up candidates in opposition to currently serving left Labour MPs as seems likely. But it seems unlikely to gain the kind of support that would allow it to challenge the system.

Possibly if Labour continue on their current dysfunctional path they will create a new ‘Livingstone moment’ by de-selecting their former leader. It might just shake him out of his life-long dedication to the party enough to stand under a new label, and given his popularity and record as a constituency MP he would almost certainly win. It could be the spark which ignites a new politics nationwide.

A new party won’t of course be Class War, who became a political party for the 2015 general election, standing in seven constituencies. As I wrote, “None expected to get many votes, but it was an opportunity to generate some interest in working class attitudes and issues. And Class War and its candidates and policies certainly attracted far more media attention than the various small left wing groups who stood candidates.”

Class War had a manifesto, with six simple points:

Double Dole,
Double Pension,
Double Other Benefits,
50% Mansion Tax,
Abolish the Monarchy,
Abolish all Public Schools.

UK benefits are mean, and state pensions probably the lowest in Europe, so calling for massive rises makes a lot of sense. And if you want to tackle the class system in the UK then abolishing the monarchy and public schools is certainly a good start. The mansion tax may seem a little excessive, but what we really need is a land tax, though perhaps at a rather lower level. But somehow that didn’t come to mind when the manifesto was being written on the short walk from the pub to a Poor Doors protest.

Class War – and others including the Monster Raving Loony Party, Count Binface and Lord Buckethead – at least make our general elections more interesting, adding a little fun. And I sometimes think they would have made a better job – as Lord Buckethead claimed – at negotiating Brexit than Theresa May and particularly than Boris Johnson.

The manifesto launch took place at Buckingham Palace, where Westminster candidate Adam Clifford was refused entry to canvas the 31 voters registered there, and was filmed by a team from BBC News although I don’t know if any of it was ever broadcast. The event ended when police began to take rather too much interest in what was taking place.

More pictures at Buck Palace Class War Manifesto Launch.