Labour Representation Committee

Labour Representation Committee was formed at a founding conference on Saturday 3 July 2004, taking its name from the original Labour Representation Committee, formed in February 1900.

The LRC encourages Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) and Branch Labour Parties (BLPs) to affiliate, along with local, regional and national unions, and individual party members and supporters. It has around 150 affiliates and 1000 individual members. In parliament, the group is represented by the Socialist Campaign Group. The LRC also has a youth group, the Socialist Youth Network.

The Chairman is John McDonnell, who the LRC supported as a candidate for leader of the Labour Party. Its Organiser is Lizzie Woods. Joint-National Secretaries are Andrew Fisher and Peter Firmin. Its Vice-Chairs are Jenny Lennox and Susan Press. The Treasurer is Graham Bash, Editor of Labour Briefing. They are the current officers of the organisation.

According to LRC affiliate Socialist Appeal, in November 2014: "The Labour Representation Committee has lost a third of its members and is now down to 600 – in a party of 190,000. It is teetering on the verge of collapse." Despite this claim, LRC members were involved in launching the activist Socialist Campaign for a Labour Victory in early 2015.

Leaders

• President John McDonnell
• Chair Matt Wrack
• Vice-Chair Claire Wadey
• Treasurer Alison McGarry
• Key people Political secretary: Mick Brooks
• Membership secretaries: Keith Henderson, Adam Thompson
• Administrator: Michael Calderbank

London meeting

Members and delegates from affiliated organisations, including the New Communist Party of Britain, attended the annual conference of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in London February 2019.

The LRC was established in 2004 by left-wing Labour Party members, MPs and trade unionists who want to restore the Labour Party to its original socialist roots.

The NCP affiliated to the LRC in 2005 and a number of party members and supporters took part in this year’s conference, including NCP leader Andy Brooks as well as National Chair Alex Kempshall and Theo Russell from the Central Committee.

Just 127 LRC activists took part in the one-day conference, which largely opted to close ranks around the policy statement of the National Executive Committee. This was reflected in the defeat of motions to the left of the LRC mainstream, including an NCP motion on taxation, others on Zionism, and at elections that saw most candidates returned unopposed.

Fire Brigades Union leader Matt Wrack and Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell made important contributions to the general discussion on where Labour is going in the run-up to a possible general election this year. Walter Wolfgang, the veteran Labour activist, moved the Labour CND motion on peace that was passed unanimously.

The election of Jeremy Corbyn – one of the leading founders of the LRC – to the leadership of the party in 2016 and the crushing defeat of a Blairite challenge the following year has led to a mass influx of new Corbyn supporters into the party. With over 550,000 individual members, Labour is now the biggest party in western Europe. How to reach out to them and to the other left pressure groups inside Labour was another key topic in the afternoon’s discussion.

Finally, in what has become an LRC tradition, the conference closed with a rousing speech from Ian Hodson, leader of the Bakers’ Foods and Allied Workers’ Union, followed by the singing of the Red Flag and the Internationale.

LRC: preparing Labour for power

Members of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) met for a special general meeting in London’s Conway Hall February 2018 to debate the LRC’s continuing role within the labour movement.

The modern LRC was founded in July 2004 by left-wing members of the Labour Party, trade unionists and others with the aim of restoring the party to its founding purpose of defending working-class interests, fighting for social democracy and the public ownership of the means of production and distribution. That aim has largely been achieved with the election of Jeremy Corbyn – one of the leading founders of the LRC – to the leadership of the party in 2016, his re-election after a challenge the following year, a mass influx of new Corbyn supporters into the party and at the end of last year the winning of a left majority on the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC).

It could be argued that the LRC has done its job – a task that seemed almost impossible in 2004 – but there are still battles to be fought. Some local authorities are still in the hands of right-wing Blairite Labour cliques who are wedded to Tory policies.

And the right wing is still committed to undermining Corbyn’s leadership, though so far all the plotting, slandering and double dealing seems only to have made his position stronger.

The first speaker was Mick Brooks, the LRC’s political secretary presenting the National Executive Committee statement, pointed out that the LRC still has a vital role. The mass organisation Momentum UK is doing great work campaigning for Corbyn to become Prime Minister and to counter the dirty tricks of old right-wing Labour MPs and councillors.

Mick Brooks said there was hope that the LRC and Momentum UK would be working together. “But,” Brooks warned, “the LRC is a properly constituted organisation; we have conference, we have elections. Momentum has a ‘democratic deficit’, which we hope will be resolved in due course.

“The LRC is not just a Jeremy Corbyn fan club. We are more about the policies and we need our own independence. For example, on the issue of Trident, we know Corbyn has always been in favour of nuclear disarmament. But currently the official Labour Party policy supports Trident so Corbyn is obliged to keep to that line.

“But we don’t have to make that concession and we can still campaign against Trident and keep reminding him until disarmament becomes official party policy.” Mick Brooks warned that the radicalisation of the Labour Party is still in its early stages and is precarious. But the party is moving forward with the most left-wing leader it has ever had.

The debate was chaired by Matt Wrack, who is general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union, about the Labour Party’s internal Democracy Review; about false accusations of anti-Semitism; about ending Labour councillors implementing Tory policies, especially in gentrification, demolishing council estates and replacing them with private luxury homes that the former residents cannot afford to live in.

A number of resolutions were discussed and voted on, including one from the New Communist Party of Britain on housing and the need to build more council homes, cap rents and raise tenants’ awareness of their rights in fighting evictions resulting from gaps in benefit payments by re-introducing the McKenzie’s friends of the successful anti-poll tax campaign. The resolution was passed unanimously.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell spoke briefly to the conference about the work of another conference he was participating in nearby discussing the economic nuts and bolts of taking utilities and services that have been privatised back into public ownership.

He spoke of new modes of public ownership, the creation of co-operatives involving workers in the rail, water and power industries and the users of the services in a way that would make it hard for a future Tory government to re-privatise them. He also spoke of compensating former shareholders of these industries by issuing Government bonds. The conference finished with a rousing speech from Ian Hodson, leader of the Bakers’ Foods and Allied Workers’ Union, followed by the singing of the Red Flag and the Internationale.

July 2005 meeting

“Don't try to tell us that the United States war in Iraq played no part in the London bombings,” said Labour MP John McDonnell, chair of the Labour Representation Committee (LRC) in his opening comments at its annual general meeting and conference in London last Saturday.

The conference, of left Labour Party members, MPs and trade unionists who want to restore the Labour Party to its original socialist roots, began with a minute’s silence in memory of those killed by bombs in London, Baghdad and Fallujah.

The New Communist Party of Britain is affiliated to the LRC as an associate organisation and four NCP delegates – Mike Fletcher, Ken Ruddock, Daphne Liddle and Andy Brooks – attended.

The morning session, chaired by LRC vice chair Maria Exall, of the conference dealt with domestic policy as laid out in a policy document with additional motions on defending the Royal Mail from privatisation, fighting civil service job cuts, rail safety and an emergency resolution on the London bombings.

Debate was launched by platform speakers Michael Meacher, National Union of Journalists general secretary Jeremy Dear and Fire Brigades Union general secretary [[Matt Wrack.

Michael Meacher spoke on the need for socialist ideology and stressed that a labour government should not be the servant of big business.

Matt Wrack spoke of the need to find a way for those who have left or disaffiliated from the Labour Party to be able to work together with comrades inside the party for common goals.

This session ended with speeches from Katy Clark MP, Paul Mackney of the lecturers’ union Natfhe and PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka.

The afternoon session covered foreign policy and the structural organisation of the LRC. The session was kicked off by Bob Wareing MP and veteran left Labour politician Tony Benn.

New Communist Party of Britain delegates made two interventions – on the need for solidarity and respect for the sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in face of US aggression and on the need to work in trades councils.

Jeremy Corbyn MP made the final speech and the conference ended with the singing of The Red Flag. Throughout the conference all those attending were addressed as “comrade” and a genuinely comradely atmosphere prevailed.

References

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