tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6133929355900201783.post1309609867972637985..comments2020-04-21T12:55:08.994+01:00Comments on Welsh Labour Grassroots: WLG principles and priorities – Darren WilliamsMikehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01100676919037753818noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6133929355900201783.post-87179251985006841462012-10-02T12:04:18.525+01:002012-10-02T12:04:18.525+01:00Comment from Peter Rowlands
Comrades
It's a g...Comment from Peter Rowlands<br /><br />Comrades<br />It's a good idea to try and set out some guiding principles and policies for WLG, so here are some thoughts to add to those of Darren and Len. <br />We are socialists in the Labour Party(LP) because we consider it the only party in the UK with the potential to win an election with a radical left wing programme.We are in favour of promoting a broad centre left current in the party as the only way of achieving the move to the left that will be necessary to win the LP to such a programme. We therefore have no precise policy platform, and some issues, like PR, are likely to remain controversial. However, broadly we agree on measures to promote greater equality and democracy, better provision of public services including housing, more regulation and public ownership of enterprise including banking, transport, utilities, oil and defence, and the promotion of peace and democracy and the interests of poorer states internationally. However, there will not necessarily be agreement on the policies necessary to achieve those goals or the degree to which we should within a given time frame advance towards them.<br />We are not, at least collectively, Leninists. We do not seek to build a vanguard revolutionary party, a'party within a party', but rather an open current that seeks to promote left wing ideas and policies.However, we are quite prepared to work with Leninists, some of whom are very active in the labour and trade union movement.<br />We do not support the aim of Plaid Cymru for Welsh independence, partly because we do not think it achievable, but we do support devolution, and more of it, we are in favour of working with and maintaining links with Plaid, particularly as their new leader is very clearly on the left,and of supporting a nationalist and Welsh linguistic/cultural dimension toWelsh politics. <br />We remain affiliated to the LRC, the only broad pressure group for the left within the LP ( CLPD have a particular focus, Compass are no longer LP based ) but are disappointed at recent divisions within the LRC which the left in the LP just cannot afford. We will not move the LP to the left unless we are united.<br /> <br />Len Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00142683956524436104noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6133929355900201783.post-13743748140260916652012-09-17T12:03:12.186+01:002012-09-17T12:03:12.186+01:00Comments from the meeting:
As noted above, the pap...Comments from the meeting:<br />As noted above, the paper is intended to stimulate some discussion and thereby better inform debate at the AGM. Initial comments at the Newport meeting included the following:<br />• it needed to be acknowledged that Labour can potentially represent the interests of ordinary people in government but that this isn't necessarily the case in practice;<br />• the build-up towards war in the Middle East should be highlighted; <br />• the point could be made that even a bad Labour government is bad in a different way from a Tory government; <br />• we should be wary of the tendency towards rivalry between Labour-led local authorities and the Assembly, which had re-emerged since the May elections; we should emphasise more strongly our commitment to the Labour party.<br />Len Arthurhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00142683956524436104noreply@blogger.com