Sarah Stewart
Sarah Stewart
CPGB members, LPM supporters and invited guests
Paul Drummond reports on last week’s meeting of Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee) members, Labour Party Marxists supporters and invited guests
At the November 21 2021 aggregate we discussed amendments to the ‘Women’ section in the CPGB’s Draft programme.
Other comrades, in their contributions, looked at what the past six years or so had shown about the character of the Labour left. Yassamine Mather agreed with comrade Macnair about the future direction of these currents.
Jack Conrad considered the atomised, bubble-like nature of the contemporary Labour left and the political limitations of its ‘Corbynism without Corbyn’ project.
Comrades Ollie Hughes and Sarah Stewart also moved a number of amendments. Comrade Hughes argued that it was important to encourage a balance of male and female workers in socialised facilities covering domestic labour and childcare. He also proposed an agreed flexible division between parents in paid leave for childcare; demands for paid leave for parents and carers to look after sick children; and the deletion of the proposed maximum six-hour day for nursing mothers.
Drawing on the historical experience of the women’s question in the Soviet Union, Anne McShane argued that the programme should agitate for the emancipation of women in political, social and cultural life. The socialisation of childcare and domestic work were seen as important steps in this process, which would bring about equality between men and women.[1]