International Branch of the British Labour Party
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Guest blog from Duncan Enright: ‘Winning Labour’s first seat from the Tories in 2011′
Jan 28th
Duncan Enright is a councillor for the Witney East ward on Witney Town Council. The town’s MP is David Cameron. Duncan is son of Derek Enright, who was a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1984 and then an MP from 1991 until his death in 1995.
For the last 15 years I have lived in Witney, a lovely market town in West Oxfordshire. My three children, Katy (15), Lucy (11) and Tom (8) all go to local schools, including the outstanding Wood Green High School where my wife Sally-Ann is a teacher. I’m a publisher and like many of my neighbours I commute. However I enjoy Witney – I play football with other local dads, we go to the local Catholic church, and I work for the local Labour Party and have stood locally for many years. The highlight until now has been having local MP Shaun Woodward defecting from the Tories in 2000 and signing his Labour Party membership card in our sitting room! 
Last year the Tory town councillor for Witney East, Louise Chapman, was barred from office because she didn’t turn up for six consecutive months. Odd this – they are adept at managing this sort of situation. One of the other Tories (there are four for Witney East and 15 on the council of 17, one Lib Dem who votes with them) hasn’t been seen for two years, and has got away with it.
The Tories wanted to coopt a replacement. They did the same in 2009 when the only Green stood down (found it too hard going). Despite promises to the gullible Greens, they replaced him with a Tory ex-mayor! Instead I collected the ten signatures needed to force a by-election.
The Tory constituency agent, who is also the debarred councillor’s father, railed against the expense of a by-election, and rather backed them into a corner. I took the opportunity to ram home the need for a local voice on various key local issues, which you can read about at www.duncan4witney.org. It was a great chance to state my platform, and had the advantage of being the absolute truth – these are key issues where the town councillors have done nothing, or worse still the wrong thing.
We started early, posting a letter through all doors before the nominations closed. I have the advantage of being the candidate in every election since 2007, and living right in the heart of the ward. My kids go to the local schools, my wife teaches at one, and I play football with local dads (badly). I was able to press this advantage before the Greens and Lib Dems had even decided to stand. (I did in fact write to them to ask them to stand aside in my favour, so we could challenge the Tories directly on the big local issue of a disputed £20m bypass – I’m against and the Tories are for. Subsequently the Lib Dem candidate, also against, has been abandoned by his County colleagues who voted for unanimously. Same old Lib Dems!)
To be honest, when the list closed I was disappointed not to have a Tory candidate, and also assumed that their support, which is pretty substantial locally, would naturally transfer to their mates the Lib Dems. More >
Guest blog from Julian Priestley: ‘Europe must step up in 2011′
Jan 6th
The sudden and untimely death of Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, just before Christmas, robs Europe one it’s most articulate and lucid voices. The former Minister of Finance in the Prodi government, and one of the architects of monetary union, was a shrewd commentator of the European scene. Writing in December for Notre Europe, the Paris think tank, founded by Jacques Delors, which he chaired, he talked of ‘the hurricane which had attacked the sovereign debt of the Euroland economies’ having as its real target the euro, rather than the debt of particular member states.
In his view the best means of defending the Euro was attack; complete the reform of economic governance, pursue fiscal union, seize on the review of the own resources system this year with new sources of finance for the EU’s budget from taxing financial transactions and carbon emissions; and finance Europe-wide infrastructure improvements by Eurobonds.
He was deeply critical of the pursuit of austerity as an end in itself. Responsible public finances needed in his view to go hand-in-hand with strong measures to combat unemployment, and harnessing the catalytic effect of the EU budget to this effect.
Such thinking is of course anathema to orthodox leaderships in Berlin, London and many national capitals. And it may be too heady a brew for the European Commission which has been reluctant to show leadership ever since the financial crisis broke in the autumn of 2008.
But the truth of the matter is that the political authorities in the member states and in Brussels have consistently underestimated the nature and scale of the challenge to Europe’s economic sovereignty posed by the crisis. At every stage the European Council, EcoFin and the Commission have been behind the curve. Measures taken in May, October and December 2010 might have stemmed the crisis had they each been taken two, three or six months earlier. But the consistent delay and sometimes the quality of the decisions has rarely provided more than a brief respite before the next onslaught from the speculators. More >
European political parties – the missing link
Dec 6th
Julian Priestley, former General Secretary of the European Parliament and a good friend of Brussels Labour, has recently published a paper for the Notre Europe foundation (set up by Jacques Delors) which he has agreed to let us put online (click here to read the paper).
Titled ‘European political parties: the missing link’, its central thesis is that Europe’s political parties are failing to make the links between the institutions and the citizen. As a result they bear some of the responsibility for the anti-EU sentiments present in many member states, and these sentiments in turn hinder the development of the parties. The importance of their role in recent EU-level decisions on key posts served only to highlight the untransparent way in which they reached their positions, resulting, as Julian puts it, “in a failure to add any discernible democratic value to the process”. More >
Brussels Labour quiz: thanks for your support
Nov 12th
Intense concentration as Michael Cashman reads the questions
Over €300 raised for charity
The Brussels Labour quiz, held on Wednesday 10 November, was a great success – 18 teams of four packed into The Staff to hear some fiendish questions read by Michael Cashman MEP.
The raffle raised €313 for the victims of the floods in Pakistan.
A longer write-up of the will follow on brusselslabour.eu in the Germinal section, and in the next print edition of Germinal, due to be published in the new year.
Thanks again for your support!
‘Treat the cause, not the symptoms’ – Damanaki’s antidote to ‘austerity mania’
Oct 26th
Maria Damanaki, Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries
Social justice, solidarity and the danger of deep public cuts were the issues tackled by Maria Damanaki, the Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, when she spoke to Brussels Labour in September 2010. The timing of her speech on the European Debt Crisis and the European Left was particularly apt: the Commissioner had just emerged from talks on the financial package of responses to the banking and financial crisis, while the debt crisis in her native Greece remained a core concern for the European Union.
The Commissioner’s frank and critical approach to the subject reflected one of her main messages: the need for socialists to speak out and tackle the debt crisis head-on so as to reclaim ground lost to the centre-right in diagnosing and treating the problem. For Mrs Damanaki, socialists have understood better that the problem lay in poorly-regulated financial markets, but somehow our voices have been drowned out in the argument over solutions. It is painful to see how centre-right governments are putting forward our diagnosis and claiming it as their own whilst at the same time gambling with jobs and livelihoods of working people through proposing deep public sector cuts which may put future growth at risk. More >
Brussels Labour at Party Conference
Oct 10th
You might have thought the first Party conference after we lost power and did so badly in the general election would be a subdued affair tinged with introspection. But the atmosphere at this year’s conference was intense and energetic. Of course it had its moments of drama (especially the leadership election results on the day before conference) but none of these dented the clear sense that the Party is determined to move forward in a confident and united manner.
The media, ever keen to find a negative angle, seemed to be reporting on a different event from the one we attended. Yet the election of the new leader and his messages have accelerated the pace at which people are joining or rejoining Labour.
Much was made about the new generation, but Ed Miliband was at pains to stress that it’s not about age but about attitude. He managed the tricky manoeuvre of breaking with the past while clearly retaining Labour values and acknowledging the considerable achievements of the Labour government.
This year’s Brussels Labour fringe meeting, organised with the EPLP, attracted a record attendance of 250. Chaired by Brussels Labour’s honorary president, Neil Kinnock, the speakers included Emma Reynolds, a former Brussels Labour treasurer and now an MP, who began her intervention with a plug for Brussels Labour. Another speaker, Douglas Alexander MP, commented that Emma is one of the stars of new intake with a brilliant career ahead of her (she is already one of five Labour members on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee). The other speakers were Massimo D’Alema, a former prime minister of Italy, and Richard Howitt MEP.
All speakers stressed the importance for the UK’s own interests of active involvement in a strong EU. At the global level, the G8 has given way to the G20 but there is a real risk that the power relations are being dominated by the G2 of the United States and China: this needs to be turned into a G3, with an active and united EU voice.
Richard Howitt emphasised that a strong common EU foreign policy is vital for British national interests. The new External Action Service had been difficult to set up because of the lack of preparation, but thanks to Cathy Ashton and the EP’s use of its new powers, it was now taking shape. Massimo D’Alema emphasised the potential of the EAS but the need for a strong policy: the mere existence of it was not a guarantee of effective external action.
Douglas Alexander urged that we move on from talking about the reach or otherwise of the EU to understanding the implications of the rise of Asia. China’s role at the Copenhagen climate talks showed the change taking place in the balance of power. We need too to move from a narrative which depends on making the case for the EU by emphasising its role in keeping the peace (important but backward looking) to a forward looking perspective with an emphasis on four key areas where an EU collective approach is vital: climate, security, trade, and poverty.
Emma pointed out that the current government is demonstrating an outdated, imperialist view of the UK’s role in an increasingly multipolar world with a reliance on bilateral rather than multilateral relations. They overestimated their UK’s role in the world and underestimated the EU’s. As she put it, for William Hague, nostalgia is the way to the future.
Belinda Pyke | Chair, Brussels Labour
More conference photos are available at flickr.com/brusselslabour
Commissioner Damanaki’s speech to Brussels Labour in full
Sep 24th
On Wednesday 15 September, Maria Damanaki, the Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, spoke to Brussels Labour. Here is the full transcript of her speech:
The European debt crisis – lessons for the left
Dear colleagues/comrades, I would like to thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to address you today. I think it is very important that we increase our cooperation inside the European socialist family. I know that the Brussels branch has been very active all this years, and has played a historic role in our political family. I thank you for it. Such collaboration is particularly important in this period when the majority of European governments are led by more conservative voices.
I agreed to speak today about the European debt crisis, a fundamental problem that we need to tackle urgently. Many in the socialist family insist that the European debt crisis is one element of a much wider issue, namely the European economic crisis. And rightly so. Look at the forest, not just the tree.
We should be careful however not to let this very valid point dilute the importance we ascribe to the debt crisis, and to the concrete responses we must take. Look also at the tree, not just the forest. More >
New edition of Germinal now online
Sep 11th
The latest edition of Brussels Labour’s newsletter, Germinal, is now online.
Click here to read more about our meetings with the Labour leadership candidates and other news.
Andy Burnham – ‘I will reconnect Labour’
Jun 24th
Note: Ed Miliband also addressed Brussels Labour on the same evening. For a summary of his meeting, click here.
Andy Burnham, MP for Leigh and former health secretary, was the third leadership candidate to address Brussels Labour. He laid out his vision for the future of the Labour Party and his thoughts on Europe, making his case to be Labour’s next leader.
He started with a bold statement that underlines what he considers to be his unique selling point: “I can give Labour something the Tories don’t have, I can connect to the people who thought Labour wasn’t on their side”. He said Labour did many good things in government, was right to be pro-business and to support job and wealth creation, but slipped up when it appeared anti-union, and seduced by power.
Andy Burnham addresses Brussels Labour
Andy Burnham said that immigration was the biggest issue on the doorstep during the election campaign and that we have to deal with it directly, adding that it was the failure to deal with the knock-on effects of immigration (on housing, benefits, and public services) that was the problem. “People are not xenophobic,” he said, “but we hadn’t helped them deal with change.” He maintained that free movement of labour in Europe should be a priority, especially since it is a two-way street.
Andy pointed out that his own Dad worked abroad when it was tough finding work in the UK. He acknowledged that those in Westminster did not listen to what Labour MEPs were saying about equipping people with the skills and protections to face the reality of a more mobile workplace – for example, through the Directives on agency and posted workers.
Andy made it clear that he did not just want to talk to the Labour heartlands, and that Labour needs to be credible in opposition. However, it is important to oppose cuts to the future jobs fund, the reduction in university places, and cuts to the Sheffield forge masters. He pointed out that the LibDems had campaigned for cuts to be delayed until the recovery was secured, so he argued that there is not a democratic mandate for cutting the budget now, as the coalition is set on doing (and as demonstrated the following day in the emergency budget).
Andy Burnham said that it is important to make a positive case for Europe, and for Labour to be the internationalist force in British politics. He said we to communicate better the successes that have been achieved at the European level – for example, on passenger rights and on mobile roaming charges. He admitted that the proper case for a Europe that improves the lives of ordinary people had not yet been made – and yet it could be, with good news on tackling bankers’ bonuses and on workers’ protection. Now is the time to point out that by isolating themselves, and aligning themselves with the far right-wing in the European Parliament, the Tories have lost their influence. In contrast, he said, Labour should come together with the wider Labour family, including the unions and sister parties, to make a progressive case for fair politics. More >
Fighting for fairness: Ed Miliband makes his case for the leadership
Jun 24th
Ed Miliband speaks to Brussels Labour
Ed Miliband spoke to Brussels Labour Party members, without notes, for over twenty minutes, setting out his vision for the Labour party under his leadership.
In a clear, well-structured speech, he set out five key elements:
Firstly, the need for a different concept of the political economy: Ed believes that Labour’s reliance on the free market and free distribution did not take us far enough, and more effort is needed to tackle equality and the gap between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’.
As an example he said that the banks that were recently ‘nationalised’ could be put into ‘mutual’ ownership – rather than just selling back to the private sector.
Secondly, the need for further reform of the state: further reform of the House of Lords and votes at 16, for example, were two initiatives that could make the state more democratic.
The third element was the role of the state in people’s lives. The need to balance intrusion (such as closed-circuit television, which he supports) with freedoms.
For the fourth element he spoke passionately about the importance of people’s lives outside the world of work – free time, community and environment.
Finally, he spoke about foreign policy and the need for values to determine our alliances. As an example, he used the disappointing
Copenhagen climate change talks: Ed believes that on the one hand, the UK had been effective in persuading the US to support climate financing for the poorest countries, but that the lack of a common EU position weakened our influence in the negotiations.
This section was very reminiscent of the 1997 ‘ethical foreign policy’, launched by Robin Cook. More >
