West Ham CLP AGM 2011

I am just back from this year's West Ham Constituency Labour Party AGM.  Via of course "The Goose" in Stratford (unbranded Pilsner lager still at £1.49 per pint!).

This was the sixth Labour Movement AGM I have attended so far this year.  Hopefully the last!  The meeting tonight was well  attended, well run and pretty good humoured.

In the CLP Officers elections the Chair Conor McAuley was re-elected; Alan Griffiths re-elected unopposed as Secretary; John Saunders elected as Treasurer; Winston Vaughan elected as Ethnic Minorities Officer and Yetunde Muda as Womens's officer.   Due to proportionality rules we were not able to elect some of the posts.  We need more women to be nominated.  This will be send back to wards and affiliates.

In the Functional Officer elections I was re-elected unopposed as Campaign Co-ordinator and Agent; John Whitworth as Political officer; David Christie as IT officer; Gerry Carlisle as Disabilities Officer and Kim Silver as Trade Union Liaison Officer (Kim who is on the UNISON NEC was elected 38:1!); Terry Paul as Assistant Secretary; Mas Patel as Assistant Agent; John Saunders as Premises manager and Fund Raiser (the 100 club - the ever so mysterious local Labour Party monthly tote) and Clive Furness as Social Secretary.

There was a contested election for auditors! We elected 2 delegates to Party Conference, Yetundee and James Beckles (and will hopefully also get a young member to attend). 

The trade union delegates "had a huddle" and we elected delegates to EC (including myself) and Local Government Committee (LGC).  West Ham nominations to LGC will be sorted out at the next GC. 

At the end of the meeting we had an extraordinary meeting about Greater London Assembly election candidates 2012.  Branches and affiliates had voted overwhelmingly to support the renomination of John Biggs, Nicky Gavron and Murad Qureshi as our candidates.

West Ham Labour Party increase membership by 194

Good news at this evening's West Ham Labour Party Executive Committee meeting (EC).  Our membership has increased by 194 compared to this time last year.

I suspect that this will grow much, much further as the Coalition cuts begin to be felt and the penny actually drops how the Nasty the Nasty Party are when in power (with their new wannabe Nasty Orange Book allies).

West Ham is a solid Labour Seat and arguably the birthplace of the Labour Party. 

After the vital post EC analysis at The "Goose" in Stratford (draught pilsner larger and cast bitter at £1.49 per pint - not bad for London) I came home and checked the Party "Membersnet" and it confirmed we now have 623 members. Fantastic news.

(picture by Dan McCurry of West Ham CLP Chair Cllr Conor McAuley and Ed at West Ham leadership hustings

Best Labour Victory in the UK – West Ham GC report

On Wednesday was our first Constituency Labour Party General Committee (GC) meeting for a number of months due to the EU election. It was very well attended and despite the pretty dire state we are supposed to be nationally, the mood was strangely upbeat and buoyant.

In the course of things I gave my report as agent on the recent election and tried to number crunch my take on how we had done.

Firstly the good news (and it was largely good locally) in Newham we had just over 40% of the vote. Not only was this share of the vote the best in London but also I understand the best anywhere in the UK. The Tories in Newham came a poor 2nd with just over 16%. London as a whole did much better than the national trend with only a 3% average drop. Our sister borough Tower Hamlets had the 3rd largest national Labour share of the vote. Maybe it is something in the water. Or maybe it’s Labour Councils delivering Labour Policies?

The borough of Newham includes the CLPs of East and West Ham as well as part of Poplar and Canning Town.

The Labour vote in Newham had actually gone up dramatically compared to 2004 but this was due in part to the collapse of the Dis-Respect vote which appeared to have pretty much returned home to Labour. For this election at least. The Labour vote mind is still down from the 50% plus of the vote that the Party use to enjoy 10 years ago. The independent Tamil candidate did take about 7% of the vote which if we earn the respect of this community next year should return to Labour.

Turnout was still very poor – we should have delivered more votes for the Party if we had mobilised better. Good news that the BNP had a drop in support and the Tories are still well behind their 1999 relative high points.

We then had a constructive debate on the lessons to be learnt from the campaign and I believe we are even better placed than before to go into a General and local election. We need crucially to keep up the campaigning and ward based activity. There was a constructive discussion on what worked and what we still need to work on. The new Newham Council policy of free school meals for all primary children is great example of clear red water between us and our opponents. More please more.

We also had another very positive discussion this time on the current state of the National Party. There was a wide range of strongly held views but delegates were polite and fair. Largely full of ideas, enthusiasm and positivity towards the future. It was suggested by the Chair that we will have these wide ranging debates on a more regular basis.

Our MP, Lyn Brown came hot foot from the House of Commons to give her report. We congratulated her on the promotion to the Whips office!

Afterward we retired to The Goose (where else) to complete the putting right of the world at £1.64 per pint.

(Picture is of Labour poster painted on meeting room wall in West Ham Party rooms).