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Member's Manual

Member's Manual

Labour Party Members’ Manual

Washington and West Constituency Labour Party How Labour Works You join the Labour Party nationally either online or by completing an application form and sending it off. You have agreed to become a member of the largest Democratic in the world. You have agreed to abide by our rules and work towards our policy objectives. Downhill As a member, you will have a say in developing our policies at local and national level. This High Redhill Witherwack Usworth Coach Road Town End Redhouse starts at Party Branch level. Once your membership is approved, you are a member of the Springwell Farm Marley Potts Party Branch in the local government ward where you live. In this Constituency we have 8 Castle Branches (see map): Washington Washington North Hylton Castle West Sulgrave Usworth Castle Donwell NISSAN Normally meet at Castletown Primary School. 2nd Tuesday of each month at 7.00pm Castletown Blackfell Albany Concord Redhill Normally meet at Redhouse Community Association. 1st Tuesday of each month at 7.15pm

South St Anne’s Washington Barmston Hylton Village Normally meet at South Hylton Ind. Methodist Church. 2nd Tuesday of each month at 7.00pm Oxclose TOWN Glebe CENTRE Teal St. Anne’s Washington Farm Pennywell Washington Central Central Normally meet at Columbia Community Association. 2nd Saturday of each month at 10.00am Biddick Columbia Ayton Fatfield Washington East Lambton Normally meet at Biddick Academy. 1st Saturday of each month at 10.00am

South Washington East Washington North Washington Harraton Normally meet at Millennium Centre. 1st Saturday of each month at 10.00am Rickleton Mount Pleasant Washington South Normally meet at Washington / Rickleton Cricket Club. 3rd Saturday of each month at 10.00am Washington West Normally meet at Albany Resource Centre. 2nd Saturday of each month at 10.00am

Party Branches Party Branches meet monthly. You will be informed of meeting dates and venues by the Secretary, Affiliated Trade Unions when you join or in other regular updates. Phone & Organisations the Constituency Secretary to check. This brief manual has been produced as an introduction UNISON to our Labour Party, aimed particularly at new At Branch meetings you can discuss any business members. It explains, in simple terms, how the Labour concerning the Labour Party at national or local Co-operative Party Party works, describes some of its history and our level. You will help choose who your local Labour potential for improving the lives of ordinary people. candidates for Councillor should be. All elected GMB Councillors are expected to attend Branch UNITE the Union Constituency Labour Party Key Contact: meetings regularly to report on their work. All Party Branch officials stand for election at the Secretary: Kevin Roddy Annual General Meeting (AGM). 135 Horsley Road, Barmston We hope you will be an active member, attending Branch meetings, perhaps, leafleting or Washington NE38 8HH canvassing for us or taking on other responsibilities. However, this is certainly not obligatory Email: [email protected] – much useful Labour Party work is carried through by members who simply support us in Tel: 0191 416 8107 or 07778 558 749 the community, the workplace on social media and the like, urging support for our policies.

Labour Party Members Manual 3 The Constituency Who would be a Labour Party Party Branches and affiliated organisations send Labour Councillor? delegates along to our monthly Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meetings. Any member can Our Labour Councillors carry on a proud tradition in this area. We expect them to be dedicated, attend and we urge you to do so. These meetings self-sacrificing democratic socialists. They have to be available to help constituents, often at are usually held at 6.00pm on the first Friday of inconvenient hours. It is a great honour to serve. However, sometimes, Councillors will be the month (except in August when we take a criticised unfairly, for matters beyond their control. break). Venues alternate between Washington As Party members, we should be available to act as willing helpers – helping ensure our Millennium Centre and the Red House Community Labour Councillors are elected, helping them at Party meetings by making sure they are Centre, to ensure a fair share of meetings between aware of issues and feelings within their area, defending them when unfair criticisms are Washington and Sunderland If the month of the made. For these reasons we take great care to select Councillor candidates who are a credit year is divisible by 3, then the meeting will be at to the Party. Red House. All officials of the Constituency Labour Party stand Nomination for election at an Annual General Meeting (AGM), Any member with the required length of membership can nominate themselves for in July. We elect delegates who represent the selection as a Council candidate. “Self-nominations” are called for before each round of local Constituency Party at the National Labour Party elections. In theory, you can be selected to contest any Ward within Sunderland boundaries. Annual conference and elsewhere. We try to make In practise, it is much more usual for candidates to contest the Ward where they live, or a the Constituency Meetings interesting with regular Sharon Hodgson MP neighbouring Ward. speakers being invited. CLP meetings should last @SharonHodgsonMP no longer than 2 hours. Vetting facebook.com/Sharon.Hodgson.MP Our Member of Parliament, Sharon Hodgson Nominees for the “panel” of council candidates can expect to be rigorously vetted by the MP, always attends CLP meetings and reports www.sharonhodgson.org Local Campaign Forum (this is a committee elected from the 3 Sunderland Constituency back on national events answering questions Labour Party’s) who decide whether an individual is suited to be a Labour Councillor. from members. Every month, Sharon creates a Potential Councillors can expect a fair hearing and will have a right of appeal, if the Campaign Parliamentary report which is distributed at meetings, emailed out to members and put up Forum decides against them. The Campaign Forum panel is then put for approval on her website. Sharon is always keen to hear from local members about their issues. by the Regional Labour Party. Email Sharon at [email protected]. You can also keep up to day with her activities by following her on Twitter at @SharonHodgsonMP, liking her Facebook page www.facebook. Shortlisting and Selection Meetings com/Sharon.Hodgson. MP or visiting her website at www.sharonhodgson.org These meetings are usually held in autumn every year, where a Local Government election for a Councillor is due the following year. Every member of the Party living in the Ward who has been a member for the time determined by the Local Campaign Forum must be notified Participation of Women of these meetings. They are able to attend and vote upon who their candidate for Councillor should be. The Labour Party is thoroughly committed to ensuring that women have a full voice in our organisation. We have rules to ensure that women are fairly represented amongst our Only candidates on the approved list can be nominated for consideration. Our rules lay officials and our candidates and we have a Constituency Women’s Officer, appointed to help down that at least a third of our candidates in a particular Ward, over a 3 year cycle, will be women exert their voice and influence in our organisation. women – this is to ensure fair gender representation on the Council. Those people nominated by Branch members for consideration will be expected to address the ward members and answer questions, before the meeting moves to the vote. Once the majority of members approve a candidate we expect every member to unite around the chosen candidate. We aim to have all agreed candidates in place by late Autumn, in order to organise an effective election campaign for elections scheduled for the following May. By Elections We know from experience that unexpected and sad events occur. Sometimes, it is necessary to select candidates for elections called beyond the normal election cycle. In such cases, Short listing and Selection meetings will be held at short notice. Candidates will be chosen from the existing approved list of potential candidates.

4 Labour Party Members Manual 5 The Political Struggle Our Place in History The Miners found early political allies on the radical wing of the Liberal Party. However, it was quickly found that, although the Liberal Party might afford a small number of Union leaders The Labour Party was created by ordinary men and women who saw a desperate need to Parliamentary seats (most notably John Wilson, General Secretary of the Durham miners) change a society biased in favour of the rich and powerful. History tells us Monarchs and in exchange for working class votes, on the great issues they invariably took the side of the Aristocrats led privileged lives, while peasants slaved to maintain them. When large scale great capitalist employers. Parliament remained a barrier to the quest for decent living and industry developed in a Britain that became known as “the Workshop of the World”, a new working conditions. Out of a ferment of ideas, different grouping emerged to demand a wealthy class of Industrialists emerged. The former peasants and their descendants had to better deal for the working class. Two early political parties were central to this. seek work in the factories, mines and other industries where wealth was created, in order to live. The (ILP), founded in 1893, fought to unite and provide a separate voice for working class people. The Social Democratic Federation (SDF), founded in 1881, The Party developed, through struggle, as workers sought to win decent employment was the first organised socialist party in Britain. It was based upon the ideas of . conditions, a share of the wealth and a political voice. Our predecessors in Washington and Much of the initial work of forming Trade Unions was undertaken by individuals from the Sunderland played a crucial part in these struggles. ILP and SDF. The leading pioneers of present day Trade Unions like Unite and GMB were all Even Trade Unions were illegal until well into the 19th century. Parliament was entirely members of the ILP, SDF or both. Nor was religion a division – such leaders were still, also, dominated by the aristocracy and wealthy industrialists. It wasn’t until the 1880’s that a frequently Methodist lay preachers or local Catholic congregants. significant number of working class men won the vote and councils were created throughout Britain. Most working class men and women could not vote until well into the 20th Century.

The Struggle and the Fight for Votes Men, women and even infant children worked and died in the County Durham coal mines which powered the “industrial revolution” Our first great Northern miner’s leader, Thomas Hepburn, worked as a child at Fatfield pit in this Constituency. He was not just aUnion leader - he was a leading “Chartist” calling for workers, the vast majority of the population, to be allowed to vote in elections. He organised the first for Durham and Northumberland miners, calling together meetings of 40,000 workers. The first meeting was held at Shaddon’s Hill near Springwell and Blackfell in Washington in 1830. The Government, backed up the pit owners, using military force to help break up Hepburn’s union.

“The time will come when the golden chain which binds the tyrants together will be snapped. When men will be properly organised. When coal owners will only be like The most significant of these organisations locally was the ILP. Keir Hardie, who became ordinary men and will have to sigh for the days gone by.” was an organiser for the Miners union in . He established an early - Thomas Hepburn friendship with the miners in our part of County Durham. Miners from Usworth, led by the brothers Thomas and William Pallister Richardson (whose Like many early Trade Union leaders, Hepburn was a father had been killed in a pit explosion) organised strong local branches of the ILP. They Methodist lay preacher. Methodists had built their own organised against the Liberal DMA leaders and wrested control, eventually, winning the DMA chapels which were often the only places where workers for the Labour Party. Thomas was Durham’s representative on the ILP National Committee could speak freely. These were usually near where the helping found “The time will come when the golden chain which binds the tyrants together workers lived. The Methodists recognised that society was will be snapped. When men will be properly organised. When coal owners will only be like unjust, in stark contrast to the official church which was ordinary men and will have to sigh for the days gone by” branches across Durham. They dominated by the aristocracy and owners. brought leading members of the ILP, SDF and the Fabians (a group of socialist academics) to address meetings of workers in the North East and developed a firm local following through It was the Sunderland Miners at Wearmouth colliery who political and industrial struggles. organised action in 1869 to abolish the “Miner’s Bond” - an employment contract which made Miners little more than slaves. They were quickly joined by Miners from all the local In 1900 the Trade Unions called a conference to form the Labour Representation Committee collieries who formed the Durham Miner’s Association. This organisation was, eventually, to (LRC), an organisation which created the Parliamentary Labour Party. The ILP, SDF and become the bedrock of the local Labour Party. In times before voting was allowed, the only Fabians were all involved in that founding conference. In the 1900 General Election the means ordinary people had to secure change in society was through strikes, demonstrations LRC, including the leader James Keir Hardie won 2 Parliamentary seats. In the North East, and riot – which was usually unreliable, always dangerous and invited violent repression. It as elsewhere, working class voters were urged to support the Liberals and the few Lib/Lab became necessary to seek political change. candidates they fielded.

6 Labour Party Members Manual 7 Our first Labour MPs This was well expressed when the “socialist clause 4” drafted by the Fabian Sidney Webb, was adopted In Washington and Usworth, where the ILP already controlled Parish Councils and an by the infant Party, to define its aims. aristocratic Liberal coal owner expected to be the MP, this led to an early local split from alliances with the Liberals. Some three quarters of the local workforce were miners. They With the introduction of individual membership were bitterly resentful of the way the coal owners treated themselves and their families. In of the Labour Party, the ILP became less relevant. the 1906 General Election the local ILP stood their own candidate - John Wilkinson Taylor - a It remained an affiliated organisation for some working miner, for the Chester le Street seat. He was elected independently of the LRC, who years, but its significance dwindled away. The core won another 29 seats nationally (often in an electoral pact with the Liberals). Washington has membership of the SDF had formed the “British remained Labour ever since. Socialist Party” (BSP) in 1913. Eventually the BSP disaffiliated from the Labour Party before founding the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in 1920. The Communist Party never commanded national support or much local significance. The Labour Party, with its socialist ideas, became central to the hopes of the British working class. Clause 4 underpinned all the reforms introduced by Labour at local or national level – from the creation of the National Health Service and , to securing control over services and industry like , power and building millions of homes (including New Towns) for the people. It was so “To secure for the workers by hand or by central that it was printed on every member’s brain the full fruit of their industry and the Labour Party card. most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common Although “Clause 4” was amended during the ownership of the means of production, 1990’s, to “modernise” the Labour Party, we are distribution and exchange, and the best still, essentially and explicitly, a Democratic Socialist obtainable system of popular administration Party. and control of each industry or service”. - Sidney Webb, Clause 4 Minority Labour Governments In Sunderland Borough another ILP member, the printer Thomas Summerbell, was also After the First World War, Labour emerged as the clear champion of working people. Keir elected in 1906 as an official LRC candidate. The 29 LRC representatives and J.W. Taylor soon Hardie had taken an early stand, supporting the against the Tories and the formed what became known as the Parliamentary Labour Party. An early example of co- Liberals, and demanding votes for all. Under this pressure, the right to vote was enormously operation between the Labour Party in Washington and Sunderland is provided in an extract expanded - working class men over the age of 21 and women over the age of 30 were from an early leaflet for Usworth and Washington, printed by Thomas Summerbell. granted the vote in 1918 (working class women eventually won equal voting rights in 1928). The Labour Party was utterly divided when the First World The Liberal Party split, and lost most of its support amongst the working class to the Labour War broke out. Some, like Keir Hardie and Thomas Richardson Party. Although this led to some gains (the Labour Party was able to form short lived “minority (by then MP for Whitehaven) were against the slaughter Governments” in 1923 and in 1929), the Tories and their Liberal allies were able to deny the and hoped that workers internationally would stop the war, Labour Party real power in Parliament. In particular, Trade Unions were oppressed, and by uniting in . Others sided with the Liberals, wages were driven down, through events like the of 1926. Ordinary people supporting a “war to end wars”. suffered massive hardship during the “austerity” Tory Governments of the 1920’s and 30’s. Before the founding Conference of the Labour Party in 1918 At local Government level, despite some extraordinary gerrymandering, Labour dominated the Labour Party did not recruit individual members, nor Councils. Durham County Council covered most of this constituency and, together with did it have a Branch network. Individuals joined affiliated the Rural and Urban District Councils which were also Labour controlled, was able to build organisations. When local Labour Party’s were formed council houses, schools and roads – with minimal help from central government. At local throughout the country, individual members with their own level the Tory and Liberal Parties almost disappeared – standing Council candidates under particular views – Pro and Anti war, Social Democratic, Marxist, the label of “Moderates”, to disguise themselves. Methodist, Catholic and Atheist or none of these flocked to join the Party. Of course, there were differences of opinion and policy to be debated, as is the case today. What united the expanding membership was a determination that the Labour Party would help create a better, Socialist world in the future.

8 Labour Party Members Manual 9 Full Labour Governments It was only after the horrors of World War II, in 1945, that Labour was able, at last, to form Our Plans for the Future a majority Government. Locally, Washington continued to be represented in Parliament by NUM MP’s who, the union insisted, had to have worked down the pit as their “”, in order to represent our people. Sunderland elected Labour MP’s and Sunderland North has continued to be represented by Labour since then.

The Atlee Government brought about massive changes in favour of working class people. The National Health Service was created. The “Welfare State”, with provision for all, from cradle to grave, was We will continue to build a campaigning Labour Party - standing up for our communities and created. Key industries like Coal and Rail were nationalised. A “mixed making common cause with those who share our commitment to transform society. economy” with an emphasis on workers being able to organise We have a new leadership in Parliament eager to enact the Labour Manifesto - this will include: and have a say was promoted. Public services were developed. Former British colonies like India were allowed to have their own • Creating an economy that works for all - an end to vast differences in rewards. governments. • Ending austerity. At local level, in co-operation with Labour Councils, slums were • Insisting that those who can afford to pay more of a contribution pay their fair share cleared and massive new council housing estates (such as those - rather than using loopholes to hide profits in tax havens. in Red Hill, St. Anne’s and Castle Wards), with homes that workers • Ensuring essential services like Public Transport, Gas, Electricity and Water are run for the could afford were built. This work was taken forward under the benefit of the many, not the few. Restoring Public ownership where needed. Labour governments of the 1960’s and 1970’s with and • Working towards a National service - a better chance for all children. then as leaders. Washington New Town was built, industrial development was planned out, there was an increased • Insisting upon a fair deal at work - Trade Union rights and an end to the “gig” economy. emphasis on educational provision, with new Primary schools and • Building a fair, dignified Social Security system for pensioners and those who cannot work. Comprehensives developed. Britain was kept out of conflicts like the • Developing a National Care Service - proper provision for the sick and elderly. Vietnam war. • Ensuring there are secure homes for all - Build houses and secure tenancies. Under the Labour Governments of and , Labour tried to steer a “” course between socialist aspirations and capitalist market forces. No-one should • Providing Health care for all - Fixing our NHS, mental health and essential services. decry the positive gains which were made as public services were expanded and services like • Ensuring community safety - properly funded police, fire and rescue and other services. Sure Start were introduced. Policies to promote gender and race equality were developed. • Protecting local communities - proper funding for councils, transport, the environment. • Extending local democracy - ensure everyone has a say throughout the UK. • Building a more equal society - for women, LGBT, diverse communities, disabled people. • Protecting Britain - by diplomatic means, cherishing our armed forces, helping to develop, and not police the world.

10 Labour Party Members Manual 11 For the Future We remain a Democratic Socialist Party, united around a leadership which is determined to enact policies “For the Many not the Few” in the near future. Every Labour Party member has a part to play in securing a better world. We should be inspired by our predecessors.

Labour Party Members Manual Washington and Sunderland West Constituency Labour Party

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