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National Executive Committee Report

Jeremy Corbyn welcomed newly elected members Rachel Garnham, a former member of Labour CND executive committee, Yasmine Dar, and Jon Lansman to their first National Executive Committee meeting on 23 January, highlighting that the NEC had a female majority. A list of all NEC members is available here.

All members of the NEC are members of the National Policy Forum which oversees the development of party policy and forms the basis of Labour’s general election manifesto. The NEC is also responsible for party rules and candidate selection processes.

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Labour NEC election results

Congrats Rachel, Jasmine, Jon!

Elections results are in for the three additional Constituency Labour Party places on the National Executive that 2017 annual conference agreed on. The three Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) candidates swept the board. Chosen to represent the CLGA coalition from among 48 would-be contenders, when the results were announced on 15 January, they’d swept the board – beating the right wing Labour First / Progress slate by an overwhelming majority.

Rachel Garnham, a former member of Labour CND Executive Committee, is a constituency secretary and former rep on Labour’s National Policy Forum. Standing for an NEC place for the first time a first time, her running mates were Jasmine Dar and Jon Lansman. Jon, a founder of Momentum stresses his commitment to a transformative government; and Jasmine, a Manchester City councillor emphasises she’s committed to ‘actions not just words’.

Click here to read their statements in full. 

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Memorial for Helen John

Sunday 10 December

Helen John, a co-founder of Greenham Women’s Peace Camp and a long-time nuclear disarmament and anti-war activist, died on 5 November aged 80.

A public memorial for Helen’s friends and supporters will take place at the Kirkgate Centre, Shipley BD18 3EH at 2pm Sunday 10 December, arranged by Helen’s son Magnus.

There will be a short humanist service, which includes an open mic for those who want to say a few words about Helen. The celebrant was at Greenham Common and is a long-time a member of Yorkshire CND who knew her.

This ceremony is held near Otley and Keighley where Helen lived in the latter part of her life, and nearby the care home where she spent her final years.

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BAE Systems and Defense Diversification

Today the Morning Star reported that BAE Systems is set to announce the loss of 1000 jobs from it’s jet fighter construction sites in Lancashire. This will produce tremendous hardship for the individuals concerned as well as for the community and ultimately the Country.

This workforce is highly skilled and highly paid. Once again we see that the Arms Industry does not provide secure jobs. Steve Turner of Unite asks that the next generation of fighter jets be built in this country. This is NOT the answer. People are not buying these planes, hence the job losses.

The only way to provide secure, sustainable jobs is to look to diversify the Arms Industry, producing socially useful products, not planes designed to kill, often innocent men, women and children. Such planes as these are being used by Saudi Arabia to bomb Yemen adding to the devastation of that Country. We now have a chance to look seriously at diversification into such as off-shore wind power generation using the skills of this workforce. Such a programme has been proposed by the Labour Party through it’s shadow Defence Diversification Agency.

The Arms Industry kills. We need more electricity generating capacity. Off-shore wind and tidal power are ways of doing it at the same time protecting the jobs of this workforce.

 

Dr Christopher Butler, Yorkshire Labour CND rep.

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Korean Peninsula
THE SHADOW OF NUCLEAR WAR

The crisis on the Korean Peninsula is bringing the region closer to open military conflict than it’s been for many years, with unimaginable humanitarian consequences. By accident or design, the actions by North Korea and the United States could result in a nuclear detonation.

The war of words between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un, reflects escalating provocations on both sides.

On 7 July the UN adopted the first-ever, legally-binding Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The UK boycotted the UN’s global nuclear ban negotiations. Britain greeted the treaty’s adoption with a statement signed jointly with the US and France, declaring: ‘We do not intend to sign, ratify or ever become party to it.’

A month later, President Trump was threatening ‘fire and fury like the world has never seen’.

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THE SHADOW OF NUCLEAR WAR”

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A Minister for Peace and Disarmament

Wednesday 11th October, 6.30pm to 8.00pm
Wilson Room, Portcullis House, Victoria Embankment, SW1A 2JR

with

Fabian Hamilton MP, Labour Shadow Peace and Disarmament Minister
Christine Shawcroft, Labour Party National Executive Committee
Daniel Blaney, Labour CND

Fifty three countries signed the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on 20 September, the first day it opened for signature. But the UK government has refused ever to sign it. Labour’s manifesto promises to create a Minister for Peace and Disarmament, part of its commitment to reducing human suffering caused by war by focussing on protecting civilians, conflict prevention and resolution, and peace-building, London CND asks if and how these policies can reshape the war culture of past decades.

All welcome

 

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CND at Labour Party conference

If you’re visiting Brighton be sure to say hello to CND. We have a stall there and are holding a fringe meeting on Sunday evening, details below. 

TOWARDS A NUCLEAR FREE WORLD

Cancel Trident replacement, support the nuclear ban treaty

Sunday 24 September 6pm to 7.30pm
St Paul’s Church, West Street, Brighton
(5 minutes from the Conference Centre)

with…

Diane Abbott MP
Shadow Home Secretary

 

 

 

Fabian Hamilton MP
Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament

 

 

Christine Blower
International Sec, National Education Union

Christine Shawcroft
Labour NEC

 

 

and

George Downs
National Policy Forum

http://www.cnduk.org/get-involved/events/item/3544-cnd-fringe-meeting-at-labour-party-conference

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TUC Congress calls for Shadow Defence Diversification Agency

Labour CND welcomes the decision of the TUC Congress 2017 to lobby the Labour Party to set up a Shadow Defence Diversification Agency before the next general election, and work to develop a national industrial strategy which includes the possibility of arms conversion.

Motion 17, Defence, jobs and diversification, from the Artists Union England, recalled the ground-breaking plan for alternative, socially useful work pioneered by the Lucas Aerospace workers in 1976. It highlighted ‘a convergence of crises – militarism and nuclear weapons, climate chaos, and the destruction of jobs by automation’, and acknowledged that defence workers ‘are rightly concerned about the potential loss of jobs, for example if Trident replacement is cancelled’.

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