Thursday, May 28, 2015

Lyn Brown MP - All-members meeting this Thursday evening - hope to see you there

This has been sent to all West Ham Labour Party members by Lyn.

"Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you for all your hard work and dedication during the General Election campaign. I am truly grateful for the support you have shown me and our party. It was a fantastic result in West Ham, Ilford North, Bermondsey and Old Southwark and in London as a whole; it was however, a gut-wrenching result across the country.

As you know, we were twinned with Ilford North, and many of you went over to campaign to get Wes Streeting elected - we were so right to do so. Wes only won by 589 votes. The fact is Wes wouldn’t have won without your help. It goes to show that in many places hard work can get us the results we need. London’s fabulous result is testament to our superb ground operation and our hard-working membership. It is in London where the fightback for Labour will start.

The first thing we can positively achieve for the people of West Ham is to elect a Labour Mayor for our great city. Tomorrow (Thursday 28 May)) at 8pm, at Vicarage Lane Community Centre, E15 4HW, we will be holding our all-member nomination meeting. At that meeting we will nominate our candidate for the London Mayoral election. You have a vote – please don’t waste it.

I've been thinking about the future of our party, I know it is important to have a Mayoral candidate who will fight for ordinary Londoners. I believe that person is Sadiq Khan, who grew up in a council house in London, became a lawyer, before he sat in Gordon Brown’s cabinet. For the past year I've heard Sadiq speak on issues concerning London, as the Shadow London Minister, and I know he and I share priorities for West Ham and our capital.

In short Sadiq’s manifesto is:

* To build more affordable housing and to protect private renters, with more
social housing and a London-wide not-for-profit lettings agency. 

* He will prioritise skills, apprenticeships and fair pay for Londoners. Sadiq
will work with businesses to ensure we have the skills that businesses of the
future will need, but he will be asking more businesses to pay the London Living
wage and he’ll fight for a higher minimum wage in London. 

* He pledges to keep fares down, whilst ensuring we plan for the transport
infrastructure of the future. 

* Sadiq intends to bring back neighbourhood policing and put prevention first –
he knows that preventative neighbourhood policing is by far the most effective
way to reduce crime and make our communities safer. 

* In our schools, he will facilitate cross-London planning to fix the school
places shortage and he will use the Mayor’s power to ensure Free Schools and
Academy Chains work with the boroughs in which they are situated.
 
* And Sadiq will fight for more powers for London so that we can get a better
deal for the majority.

I believe Sadiq is the Mayoral candidate who will make London work for all
Londoners and not just the very privileged few at the very top.

You will know that there are a number of candidates standing for nomination
including: Diane Abbott, Gareth Thomas, David Lammy and Tessa Jowell. All of
these comrades have their strengths and supporters. I will fight hard for
whichever candidate we choose.

I hope that you will come along and nominate the candidate of your choice, I
know there will be a real divergence of views and the vote is likely to be
close.

Obviously, I hope that our candidate will be Sadiq. Hope to see you there
tomorrow.

With best wishes and in comradeship,

Lyn

MP for West Ham

(picture is my favourite of campaign JG)

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