Labour Party Conference 2019 Brighton

I was very pleased to be selected as the voting delegate for Beverley and Holderness CLP to go to Conference held at Brighton this year. I have been to conference before, both as a delegate and a member and I can see how involved the members are at conference under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Young, old, disabled, people of many cultures are present and taking part.

Our CLP had passed a motion on the Green New Deal which went to the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) and was selected with other CLPs to be debated at the composite meetings at Conference. Over a 137 CLPs up and down the country put forward their Green New Deal and it was by far the largest motion put forward exceeding Brexit (91 motions). The Green New Deal debating room was jam packed with delegates and the debates went long into the night. They were intense, passionate, and with every CLP feeling their motions was more informed than the next motion with everyone wanting to speak. It was hard not to feel moved by such passions and I felt I was getting an education at the debates on pledges to zero carbon emissions, large scale investments in renewables, transitions to well paid, unionised, green jobs available to all, green public integrated transports, supporting developing countries climate transitions and more.

It is long days at conference, and I attended for a large part of the day and always making sure I was on the floor for the voting. The hall is packed with union members, labour members, CLP delegates, the press, TV cameras, etc. There are plenty of places for eating, drinking, toilets, browsing around at stalls and an opportunity to bump into MPs. Whilst all this is going on inside conference building, on the outside, along the seafront and in the side streets, fringes are being held in various cafes, hotels, halls and street stalls on homelessness, food banks, justice system, NHS, WASPI, Brexit, Clause 4, public transport, war zone countries, education and much, much more.

All these fringe events are also debated at conference as they too are put forward by CLPs. I attended several fringe events on Carbon emissions and the public services. To be honest I wanted to attend everything but you can’t as there is so much to look at and it is very exhausting but it is fun, it is learning, you meet new and old friends and you are a part of a manifesto, a platform of a radical strategy that is very much needed for the country. For the many not the few.

(Johanna Boal CLP delegate 2019)