VOTE YES TO MOTION 10: TO KEEP LINK BETWEEN CO-OP GROUP & CO-OP PARTY

As a regular shopper in my local Co-op store and Co-op Party (& Labour) Councillor you would expect nothing less.

Check out 

"For over 100 years, the Co-operative Party and the co-operative movement have worked together to build a society where power and wealth are shared. Today, that work still continues through our partnerships with the various co-operative retail societies.

From securing new protections for shop workers who face violence and abuse at work to promoting campaigns such as fairtrade and fair tax, the Co-operative Party and the Co-operative Group are a powerful force for positive change. But to keep delivering on behalf of the co-operative movement, we need your support.

If you’re entitled to vote, you have until midday on 13th May to cast your vote.

Co-operative Party was founded in 1917 by the co-operative movement – made up of member and employee-owned businesses determined to change how business is done and who shares its rewards.

That relationship continues today, with the Co-op supermarkets and retail societies on your high street continuing to support our Party and campaign with us on crucial issues like food poverty, ending violence against shopworkers, and promoting Fairtrade.

Vote Yes to Motion 10 to ensure our work continues.

Shop at a Co-op with your blue membership card? Look out for your ballot and vote #YesToMotion9 🗳️

(as a regular shopper at the co-op, co-operative party member and a proud Labour and Co-op Candidate in the local Council elections next month you can hazard a guess which way I will be voting on motion 9)  Dear John, Do you regularly shop at a Co-op using a blue membership card? If so, that means you are a member of the Co-operative Group – and as a member, you may receive a voting pack by email or post this week to take part in their annual members' vote. Every year, Co-operative Group members vote at their AGM on whether to continue the partnership between the Co-operative Group and the Co-operative Party. If you receive a ballot by email or post this week, vote Yes to Motion 9 to ensure our historic and successful partnership continues. Unsure if you are eligible to vote? You can check if you have met the qualifying criteria on the Co-operative Group's website.

 

Check if I can take part

 

For more than 100 years, the Co-operative Party and the co-operative movement have worked hand in hand to build a society where power and wealth are shared. Today, that work still continues through our partnerships with the various co-operative retail societies. From standing up for shopworkers to promoting fairtrade and fair tax, together the Co-operative Party and the Co-operative Group are a powerful force for positive change. But to keep delivering on behalf of the co-operative movement, we need your support. If you have received a ballot, you have until midday on the 16th of May to cast your vote. If you're voting #YesToMotion9, you can help us now by sharing the news on social media! Just use the buttons below.

 

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If you have any questions about the Party's work over the past year, you can find out more online at party.coop/coopagm22 or email us at mail@party.coop.   Voting only takes a few minutes but it means the world. Yours in co-operation, Joe Fortune General Secretary Co-operative Party

 

Standing as a Labour and Co-operative Candidate in May 2022

Hat tip to Neil Wilson our Newham secretary, Co-op Party from London Region.

Standing as a Labour & Co-operative candidate

We are really keen to ensure we maintain a large number of Labour & Co-operative councillors following the local elections next year. We are working with our new regional organiser, John Cook, to help make this happen. Here are some things we're asking branches to do:

- Encourage any sitting Labour & Co-operative Councillors who are re-standing to get in touch with the National Party if they wish to re-stand as Labour & Co-operative. This is not an automatic process - candidates need to seek endorsement of the Co-operative Party even if they were elected on the joint ticket last time around. They can do this by signing up to the Candidate Development Programme.

 

EXCLUSIVE: Sir Robin Wales challenges critics and claims trigger ballot ‘fix’ against him as re-selection contest looms

Blimey, is this supposed to be an Alan "Olive Branch" to the community?

Since nearly all the young, talented (and mostly female) Newham Councillors are now standing down - I think this is just a little late...

But rather bizarre and strange quotations methinks?

Hat tip article in "On London" by Journalist Dave Hill

"Newham Mayor Sir Robin Wales has urged local Labour Party critics to judge him on his record and told his critics to show that they have better policy ideas as he prepares for a selection battle that could end his 23-year leadership of the East London borough in May.

In an in-depth and often combative interview with On London, his first since the “open selection” contest was announced, Sir Robin pledged that, if he wins, his next mayoral term will be his last “no matter what” and that he would bring new councillors into his mayoral team to “give them a chance to show what they can do” as he prepared the ground for his successor.

He characterised Newham’s as “the most radical council in the country”, citing current policies on employment, housing, homelessness, education and supporting poorer residents as models that could be followed by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, and saying that improving health care and skills would be his priorities in any fifth mayoral term.

Sir Robin also strongly defended the conduct of the 2016 “trigger ballot”, which initially saw him re-selected as Labour’s 2018 mayoral candidate by 20 votes to 17 but was later annulled following complaints and legal action by local members, claiming that the main problem was simply poor record-keeping by party volunteers and that he was the true victim of procedural irregularities.

He claimed that the outcome of the Newham Co-operative Party trigger vote in 2016, which went against him by a single vote, was “fixed” by what he said was his wrongful exclusion from casting a vote himself and by a fellow Co-op member being permitted to cast one against him despite leaving the relevant meeting before the ballot itself was held.

He also said he has evidence of invalid votes having been cast at ward branch meetings during the original trigger ballot process and that there had been, in breach of party rules, a concerted prior effort to sign up members in order to influence the outcome, leading to “about 200 votes across a number of wards” being cast against him. There were 20 individual branch ballots, resulting in nine trigger ballot “yes” votes to Sir Robin going forward automatically as mayoral candidate for 2018 and eleven “no” votes.

Sir Robin said he has written to individuals he believes were involved, informing them that “we might take you to court”. Referring to “a particular group in a community” he likened the situation to that in a neighbouring East London borough, Tower Hamlets, where Labour has a history of contending with allegations about the signing up of substantial numbers of people from among its Bangladeshi residents, who are thereby enfranchised to vote in candidate selection contest ballots but who make no other contribution to the party.

Though declining to identify the “particular group” by its ethnicity or religion, Sir Robin said the members concerned were “all men”, reiterated his long-standing disquiet over that he terms “community politics” and was keen to place on record his view that in Newham Labour “there are loads of Muslims who are progressives”.

Describing his approach as Mayor as guided by “considered risk”, he talked up the potential of the Newham-owned Red Door Ventures housing company to build new homes for market and affordable rent on the large scale required and stressed the need for such initiatives by London councils, given that commercial developers have consistently failed to meet housing demand in London and that government policy restricting borrowing for house building was “moronic”.

Responding to criticism that Newham’s £40m investment in the conversion of the 2012 Olympic stadium, now the London Stadium, has failed to produce a return, he urged people to look at the bigger picture of the Olympic Park and its environs, saying that Newham’s commitment had been to a wider regeneration programme and that this would eventually produce “somewhere between £120m and £160m in value” to the borough".

Read the full On London interview with Sir Robin Wales here.

THANK YOU for visiting this website. OnLondon.co.uk has led the way in covering the Newham trigger ballot story. It needs your donations to keep it going, growing and continuing to provide fair and detailed journalism about a range of big issues facing the capital. Please support this Crowdfunder today.

Newham Co-op Party AGM 2016 (Rerun)

Back this evening from a rerun of the Newham Co-operative Party AGM. Due to "irregularities" at the AGM in January the AGM was rerun with Co-op Party officials chairing the meeting.

I was really pleased that longstanding Co-op Party stalwart, Gill Hay, was elected Chair. The Vice Chair was won by Jeanette Dye from East Ham. Neil Wilson was elected unopposed as secretary and Averil Dohohoe as Treasurer.

Alan Griffiths who has done so much for the Co-op Party and turned our branch into the second biggest in the Country was re-elected as Membership secretary. I was elected unopposed as assistant secretary as was the auditors.

I was also elected unopposed with 3 others to the Co-op London Regional Council.

The Co-op delegates to East Ham and West Ham Labour Party General Committees will be decided later by a preference count of votes cast last night.

The evening was marred by the abusive and threatening behavior outside the meeting by one Co-op member towards another, which I will be bringing to the attention of Party officials. Such behaviours are not acceptable in the Co-op Party or any other progressive organisation. 

Let's Keep it Co-op Together.

If you are a member of the Co-op - check out this video on how to keep the co-operative partnership between the Co-op Group and the Co-op Party.

Work together in cooperation for a fairer Britain.

Somerfield’s adoption by the Co-operative family

Our local Somerfield (in a very handy location just next door to Forest Gate Station) is now giving out leaflets about being part of the “Co-op family”. I also got a marketing email today about this (see picture left).

I have asked staff when the full rebranding will take place but they were not too sure. But good news for us local residents and no doubt the staff.

I am a member of the “Co-op” (and the Labour affiliated Co-op Party) but there had been nowhere locally to buy goods and groceries since the stores in Leytonstone and Stratford closed many moons ago.

Tonight on BBC local News I watched a report on a campaign to have the former East End work house and mental health hospital, St Clements, (where I use to do trade union site safety inspections - a very interesting experience) turned into a Housing Co-op site and Community Land Trust.

The mutually owned Banks and building societies have been attracting fresh interest since it appears that due to their ownership structure they have survived the recent financial turmoil much better that their Joint Stock competitors (not all of course). There is never the less a lesson here for the benefits of active ownership.

The Co-op financial services has also recently taking over the Britannia Building society (a long term partner with UNISON) to produce a new “super mutual”.

So it appears that the Co-op movement in the UK (and especially Newham) seems to be on the march again.

BTW - I must admit that I was disappointed that last week while on a self catering holiday in the Durham Dales I could not use my membership card at local Co-op stores when making purchases. Especially since we were asked every purchase if we had a shareholder account number. I appreciate that local Co-op’s are proud of their independence but I think that it would benefit the movement as a whole if your support by spending at other Co-ops was recognised in some way.

Just a thought- not really a moan.