Motion to Labour Party Women’s Conference

Labour Party Women’s Conference 2018 will take place on Saturday 22 September, the day before Annual Conference opens. This year CLPs and affiliates can submit a resolution for debate by the deadline of FRIDAY 29 JUNE. We encourage all CLPs to submit motions supporting the UN treaty for a global ban on nuclear weapons. Here’s an example from Finchley and Golders Green:

This Labour Women’s Conference:

  1. Welcomes the efforts from North and South Korea to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
  2. Congratulates ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in December 2017.
  3. Urges Labour women to read and disseminate the Nobel Lecture delivered by Beatrice Fihn and the Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow.
  4. Notes that:
    a.   122 states adopted the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in July 2017
    b.   58 states or more have signed this Nuclear Ban Treaty, including Ireland, Austria, New Zealand, Brazil, Nigeria and South Africa
    c.   Ratification by 50 signatories will bring the Treaty into force; at least 9 have already ratified.
  5. Calls on Labour to support this urgent work to prevent accidental or deliberate use of nuclear weapons by pledging to sign and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.”

Support the Ban

CLPs and branches have been passing resolutions supporting the Nuclear Weapons Ban, and a few have been posted onto the Policy Forum. Please get your branch or CLP to pass a resolution.

Then ask your Secretary to post it on the Policy Forum, and email it to your local MP and to our Shadow Minister for Peace & Disarmament: fabian.hamilton.mp@parliament.uk

Also show your individual support: post a submission yourself, or vote for submissions you like at https://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/commissions/international

Here is an example of a resolution supporting the Ban

passed by Finchley & Golders Green CLP:

This Constituency:

notes with alarm the tensions on the Korean Peninsula;

holds that this underlines the urgency of the nuclear powers’ obligation under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to bring about nuclear disarmament where North Korea and the US are in danger of plunging the world into nuclear war;
supports the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban by taking the following actions:

  • We congratulate CND and the other peace organisations in 100 countries who make up ICAN (the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. The prize was awarded for their role in achieving the UN Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
  • We call on Labour MPs to support the Nuclear Weapons Ban by signing Early Day Motion 374, so far signed by at least 35 MPs.
  • We note that our manifesto stated, “Labour will lead multilateral efforts with international partners and the UN to create a nuclear-free world.”
  • We therefore urge our Shadow Minister for Peace & Disarmament Fabian Hamilton to lead multilateral efforts by publicly pledging that Labour will sign the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.

Labour’s Policy Forum: Speak up on Trident

Checked out the Labour Party website lately? If so, you’ll have noticed that one of the changes takes you to a Policy Forum page where you can have your say about any of Labour’s policy commissions. You can make a submission on a topic of your choice, click on the ‘get involved’ tab at the top of the page  or comment and vote on other people’s submissions.

Continue reading “Labour’s Policy Forum: Speak up on Trident”

Take a Contemporary Motion to your CLP

Labour CND has prepared two Contemporary Motions, which we hope Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) will submit for debate at the Labour Party conference. Please do take these motions to your CLP meetings – if the motions are chosen by delegates as one of the four for debate at the conference and passed, they should become Party policy! Please note there is a 250 word limit on  motions submitted for conference.

The deadline for submission of Contemporary Motions is 14 September. It is therefore essential that your CLP meets to discuss this issue before that date. We need as many submissions as possible to ensure that we cannot be ignored by the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC).