![]() | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations .(December 2010) |
Abbreviation | CLGA |
---|---|
Formation | 1998 |
Location |
|
Affiliations |
|
Website | www |
The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) [1] is a centre-left group of elected members on the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, founded in 1998. They represent members from a broad spectrum of the Labour membership, ranging from the centre-left to those on the left-wing.
The Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance's founding groups were originally Labour Reform, a centre-left democratic group within the Party founded at a meeting in Birmingham in November 1995, and the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, the left wing democratic grouping, who subsequently brought in other more left-wing groupings from within the Labour Party. Private talks with trades union representatives to build a broader base had failed on union demands and this initiated the inclusion of a much broader left group from the grassroots, including Labour Left Briefing [Liz Davies] and the then-Editor of Tribune , Mark Seddon. Prominent founding members also include Ann Black and Andy Howell. [2] Successful efforts were also made to include the Scottish Left. [3]
The first Co-ordinator [one term only] was Tim Pendry who was Vice Chair of Labour Reform [4] and the Alliance originally restricted itself to issues of party democracy, resisting attempts to put in place a left policy platform in order to be inclusive of constituency feeling from the centre ground. Labour Reform was originally associated with the What's Left Group of MPs and CLPD with the Campaign Group of MPs but liaison with What's Left ended on attempts to dictate terms to the grassroots and the Co-ordinator liaised solely with the Campaign Group during the latter stages of the campaign.
The first election resulted in four of the six available constituency seats going to the Alliance despite significantly less resources being available to the Alliance [5] and was notable for getting the editorial backing of the Guardian . [6]
In 2018 the CGLA put up a full slate of nine candidates, all of which were elected. [7]
In 2020, The groups of the CLGA agreed a slate called "Grassroots Voice", which included six representative on the nine CLP seats and a representative for the disabled and youth seats. Changes to the voting system means they had to provide a reduced slate. The six CLP representatives are Ann Henderson, Gemma Bolton, Laura Pidcock, Mish Rahman, Nadia Jama and Yasmine Dar, the disabled rep is Ella Morrison and the Young Labour rep is Lara McNeill. [8] Only Dar, McNeill and Henderson were on the NEC previously. [9] There were rumours that other candidates chosen by the CLGA included Laura Alvarez, Jeremy Corbyn's wife, and James Schneider, founder of Momentum and former member of Corbyn's staff. [10] The selection process saw 450 constituency labour parties participate, the high turnout of CLPs in Labour's history. 42% of selection nominations went to the Grassroots Voice CLP slate. [11] The result saw the 7 candidates winning; 5 of the 6 candidates in the CLP section and the disability and youth reps. The candidates in the CLP section won a combined amount of 37% of first preference votes. [12] [13] [14]
In 2021, all six of the CLGA's backed candidates for the newly created National Women's Committee were elected. These candidates were Solma Ahmed, Ekua Bayunu, Mandy Clare, Tricia Duncan, Pamela Fitzpatrick and Chloe Hopkins . [15]
The current policy of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance is broadly left-wing. They want greater powers for Constituency Labour Parties and individual members in the National Policy Forum; to maintain the power of the party conference; to resist privatisation in the National Health Service; to nationalise the railways and to increase powers for local government.
Organisations associated with the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance include:
The Labour Party Conference is the annual conference of the British Labour Party. It is formally the supreme decision-making body of the party and is traditionally held in the final week of September, during the party conference season when the House of Commons is in recess, after each year's second Liberal Democrat Conference and before the Conservative Party Conference. The Labour Party Conference opens on a Sunday and finishes the following Wednesday, with an address by the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party; the Leader's address is usually on the Tuesday. In contrast to the Liberal Democrat Conference, where every party member attending its Conference, either in-person or online, has the right to vote on party policy, under a one member, one vote system, or the Conservative Party Conference, which does not hold votes on party policy, at the Labour Party Conference, 50% of votes are allocated to affiliated organisations, and the other 50% to Constituency Labour Parties, but all voting in both categories is restricted to nominated representatives.
Kathryn "Kat" Jane Fletcher is a British Labour Party politician. In May 2016, she was sworn in as the Mayor of Islington, having served as a councillor of the borough's St George's Ward since 2013. She was previously president of the National Union of Students, between 2004 and 2006, the first to be elected from a political slate to the left of Labour Students.
Ann Black OBE is a British political activist who serves as a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the Labour Party. She served from 2000 to 2018 and was re-elected in November 2020. She was chair of the NEC from 2009 to 2010, and has also served as chair of the NEC's disputes panel.
Chartist is a bi-monthly democratic socialist magazine which has been published in Britain since the 1970s. The magazine is based in London. Its name is inspired by the Chartists, a British democratic movement which existed from 1838–1857.
The British left can refer to multiple concepts. It is sometimes used a shorthand for groups aligned with the Labour Party. It can also refer to other individuals, groups and political parties that have sought egalitarian changes in the economic, political, and cultural institutions of the United Kingdom. Various subgroups with a national scope are active. Liberals and progressives believe that equality can be accommodated into existing capitalist structures, but they differ in their criticism of capitalism and on the extent of reform and the welfare state. Anarchists, communists, socialists, and social democrats, among others, with international imperatives are also present within this macro-movement.
The Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), known as Poale Zion (Great Britain) from 1903 to 2004, is one of the oldest socialist societies affiliated to the UK Labour Party. It is a member of the progressive coalition of Avodah/Meretz/Arzenu/Ameinu within the World Zionist Organization. Its sister parties are the Israeli Labor Party (Havodah) and Meretz.
Iain Mackenzie McNicol, Baron McNicol of West Kilbride is a British politician, trade unionist and life peer who served as General Secretary of the Labour Party from 2011 to 2018. He was National Political Officer of the GMB trade union from 2004 to 2011.
Jermain Jackman is a British singer and political activist who won the third series of the BBC television singing competition The Voice UK in 2014. His debut album, Jermain Jackman, was released on 23 March 2015. He was twice a candidate for the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) in 2020. He is a member of the Musicians' Union and Unite.
The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) is a group of Labour Party activists campaigning for changes to the constitution of the Labour Party to ensure that Labour MPs and Labour governments enacted policies agreeable to the party membership. It was founded by activists in 1973, with support from about ten Labour MPs, and its first President was Frank Allaun. A leading co-founder was Vladimir Derer, and his house in Golders Green became CLPD's headquarters for about twenty-five years.
Vladimir Derer (1919–2014) was a British political activist in the Labour Party who escaped from Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s to live in Britain. For nearly four decades Vladimir was an important leader and strategist in the campaign to transform the Labour Party by making it more democratic and accountable to its members. He helped to form the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) in 1973 and was its secretary from 1974 until 2005. The CLPD is dedicated to introduce constitutional and rule changes and modernise the governance of the Party. Mandatory reselection of MPs and electoral college for the Leader were the most notable of many important democratic reforms implemented from the late 1970s until today.
Momentum is a British left-wing political organisation which has been described as a grassroots movement supportive of the Labour Party; since January 2017, all Momentum members must be members of the party. It was founded in 2015 by Jon Lansman, Adam Klug, Emma Rees and James Schneider after Jeremy Corbyn's successful campaign to become Labour Party leader and it was reported to have between 20,000 and 30,000 members in 2021.
Make Votes Matter is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom which campaigns for replacing the first-past-the-post voting system with one of proportional representation for elections to the British House of Commons.
There have been incidents of antisemitism in the Labour Party of the United Kingdom (UK) since its formation, including canards about "Jewish finance" during the Boer War and antisemitic comments from leading Labour politician Ernest Bevin. In the 2000s, there were controversies over comments made by Labour politicians about an alleged "Jewish lobby", a comparison by London Labour politician Ken Livingstone of a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard, and a 2005 Labour attack on Jewish Conservative Party politician Michael Howard.
Open Labour is an activist group in the British Labour Party which acts as a forum for members to discuss ideas, tactics and campaigning. It is in the soft left political tradition, to the right of left-wing groups like Momentum and to the left of New Labour groups such as Progressive Britain.
Labour First is a British political organisation associated with the Labour Party. It was originally founded in 1980 but refounded in 1988. Born out of the political right wing of the Labour Party's struggles with its left wing, it sees itself as protecting the tradition of the "old Labour right". It has been described externally as "the voice of the party’s traditional right" and "a group on the right of the party". It organises petitions, endorses likeminded candidates, and runs events.
Peter Rupert William Willsman is a British political activist who was a member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee and the secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy.
Deselection in the UK Labour Party is the process by which support for an MP is withdrawn by their local party meaning that the MP is unable to stand in a forthcoming general election with the support of the party.
The Rank and File Mobilising Committee (RFMC) was an umbrella group which coordinated left wing groups to campaign for increased democracy within the Labour Party.
Navendu Prabhat Mishra is a British Labour Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stockport since 2019.