Open Labour to affiliates
Socialist Organiser1984 1984-02-02Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 16 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Scan page 16
GOING round Constituency Labour Parties for discussion is a paper called 'Affiliation of small single-purpose organisations' CLPs are asked for their comments by March 1. The document gives three options:
• To continue to refuse to accept new affiliations from pressure groups and socialist societies (no new organisations have been let in since 1973) but to leave the present ten affiliates as they are;
• To abolish the whole category of affiliated societies, • To open the door and agree to accept affiliations from 'organisations which conform to an acceptable basis (yet) to be defined"
The paper leans towards the second option, scrapping the category. This would mean one less place on the Labour Party National Executive, and the seat which the societies elect is traditionally a left seat.
FUND John It would also mean that the Register would be reactivated. Groups that want to maintain a link with the Labour Party would be monitored by the Register.
Not surprisingly, the paper is strongly against inviting new affiliations, which would "result in a flood of applications to secure representation at annual conference and a possible proliferation of new organisations seeking only to secure an additional delegate to Conference"
But this option is clearly the best, acknowledging that groups like, perhaps, CND, and the small socialist parties, have a role to play in formulating Labour policy and encouraging a more broad-based, federal