Campaign news

Labour Left Platform

11th December 2014

Labour Left Platform

Appeal from John McDonnell

I am writing to invite you to participate in a roundtable meeting I have convened on Saturday 7th February 2015, whose aim is to bring together Left MPs, PPCs, Left Trade Union Representatives, Elected Local Government Members, representatives from Left Labour organisations, and a number of key Left academics, policy analysts, commentators and activists to discuss and determine the key bottom lines in policy terms that we will be campaigning for Labour to adopt in Government and as base lines in any coalition negotiations if Labour goes down that road.
If the outcome of the National Policy Forum is anything to go by, Labour’s Manifesto is likely to be light on significant policy commitments that most on the Left would consider vital not just to address the needs of our society but also to mobilise the support we need to be elected.
Many MPs, Candidates and activists will want to campaign for a more radical agenda of policies and many people will look to Labour to have any chance of their implementation in government.
We would argue that there is no contradiction in standing on Labour’s eventual official Manifesto and advocating the policies that we would want a Labour Government to implement. We would be simply campaigning democratically for Labour to go further when in office.
The reason for trying to assemble a broad Left policy based coalition prior to the election is that many voters will want to know that there are people within Labour that are arguing for real Labour policies and that by voting Labour there is still a hope that these policies will be implemented.
n addition, if Labour does end up negotiating a programme in any form of coalition, the Left should not allow itself to be ignored and should have its own policy bottom lines for any negotiations.
The meeting is from 11am to 4pm at ULU, Malet Street, London WC1E 7H.
I do hope that you will be able to participate in the meeting. It would be helpful if you could confirm by emailing leftplatform@hotmail.com.
Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you wish to discuss this further.
Best wishes,
John McDonnell MP

Background

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