My first ever Labour party conference
This year, at the age of 72, I will be a delegate from Labour International CLP at my first ever Labour party conference. So I will travel from Alicante to Brighton, taking my hopes with me for a party that will follow the election slogan "For the many, not the few."
Now I wonder why, during the time I was so active in the Labour party in Cardiff, as a branch secretary, a local election candidate, an election agent, I never went to a conference Perhaps I will find out.
Day one: 4 September
I booked my flights yesterday so I am really going. I have had a few doubts in the last week or so, mainly financial but also the hints that there may be some tough battles for power ahead and I am not really sure I want to deal with nastiness.
For financial reasons, this will be my only holiday this year and so I want to enjoy it. I haven’t been to Brighton for over 30 years and I am sure it will have changed. I am looking forward to discovering it.
The programme for the conference was published online a couple of days ago. It was pages and pages long and I have been busy so haven’t had a chance to browse yet.
Today I got a link to the sessions and I definitely want to hear Angela Raynor briefing on what to expect at the conference, a must for first timers like me, so I have signed up. Then my eye was caught by a welcome cocktail reception with Jeremy Corbyn, so I signed up for that too. I imagine the whole world has, so probably I will be lucky to get through the door of the cocktail lounge!
I realise that there will be hundreds, if not thousands of events, lots of them simultaneous, so some logistics organisation is needed, soon.
Day 2 – 7 September
My daughter has suggested giving me a ticket to the Momentum fringe festival, the World Transformed, as a birthday present, a lovely idea. A quick look at the speakers and I am totally sold. But however will I ever manage to fit in Stuart Hall, Ken Loach, Hilary Wainwright, Mark Serwotka, Dennis Skinner, Naomi Klein and loads of other must hear speakers and go to the official conference events? I am going to see if I can create an on line diary which will let me see instantly where I want to be and avoid clashes.
This will probably come as huge shock, but I do not own a smartphone. I have a very beautiful Nokia flip top mobile phone, which only needs charging once a week and an Asus notebook which I bought for writing on the move. These serve me perfectly but it means I am a novice when it comes to Apps.
Fortunately the Labour conference has an App which works on laptops and desktops, and I can see right away that the formal sessions are quite few, the main events for me being the shadow chancellors speech and the leaders speech.
However I am aware that I need to find out when key votes will be taken and where I will have vote. I am an unashamed supporter of the manifesto in the last election and like many other people I know, in person and on Facebook, I rejoined the party when Corbyn was elected leader. I must have been at events in 1970s and 80s where Corbyn was also taking part but he did not make an impression on me in those days.
So, it is not a person I support, although I confess I have grown really fond of someone with so many similar interests and who walks on through the most appalling attacks with seeming tolerance and understanding. He is much more tranquil than I would be in similar circs. It is the policies that Labour now proposes that I support, policies I have supported all my life.
My aim at the conference is to lend my support to carrying out the policies I believe in, and have a good time.
Sunday 10 September
Today I started to think about what I should take, especially clothes, with me to Brighton. I realised I have absolutely no idea a. what the weather will be like in southern England in late September and b. what kind of events I will be going to.
What do people do at conferences?
I spent ten years organising European Union conferences but they were never more 120 -150 participants and I usually knew everyone there pretty well. I suspect the secret of this conference will be to treat it as series of smaller conferences and concentrate on getting to know a few people in each group. I suspect there is an awful lot of hanging around chatting and probably drinking coffee and /or glasses of wine. Also from the look of the map of the venues, there may be lots of running from one session to another. Not a laugh if there’s lots of rain
I really must get a grip, because all my winter clothes are put away in bags, and I probably won’t need them until November at the earliest here in Spain. Boots! ! Tights!!!!
One of the reasons I thought to write this blog is because I have no absolutely no concept of what a large conference, with thousands of people, will be like and that this blog might be useful to someone who wants to go next year. I hope that other people write their thoughts too and we can create a blog page on the Labour International web page. My feeling is that in the past decades politics has become something apart from normal life and that politicians have moved apart. In Spain we call politicians “la casta”, the political class.
Back in the time when I was politically active in Cardiff, in the 1970s and 80s my impression is that things were different. Several Labour MPs I knew rented a shared house in Brixton for the small number of nights they were actually in London – no flipping main residences then. Our Conservative MP and his wife were on the PTA in the local comprehensive where all our children were educated. I would like to see those times return. My wish, though not a popular one I think, is to see being an elected parliamentary representative as a civic duty, giving five years of your time with a guarantee of keeping your job.
I think one of the fun parts is going to be staying in one of the two large houses Labour International has rented and where most people will be stay. It should a bit like student life really – sitting up late discussing the day. I have only met two of the other delegates in person, both women living in Spain, but I feel I know many of the others from our Facebook discussions and I am looking forward to spending time face to face.
Friday 22 September
I am almost ready to leave. My conference bag is nearly packed – I have put in a couple off packets of my favourite coffee and two half bottles of cava, home comforts!. I have downloaded nearly all the papers I will need and I am cooking a meal for my family from Valencia so that we can celebrate my birthday together before I go.
The more I read about the conference the more daunting it seems. How many delegates will there be? I haven’t read an exact number but certainly thousands. Then there are there are the MPs and councillors who attend, and then there are the lobbyists, the people from the NGOs and general hangers on.
Five thousand people, ten thousand? How will I ever find the people I know in that crowd?
I wonder what the aim of the conference is and for that matter what is my aim? why am I going? I suspect that there are many different groups with their own aims and objectives and the organising skill will be in ensuring that most people go home believing their aims have been met. Is it possible for this conference to be a win/win for all the chapels in the Labour party “broad church”? I think it is possible but it will take superhuman patience and superhuman negotiating skills; I think the leadership team has managed to bring Labour to where it is today, four points ahead of the Tories in the latest opinion poll, by demonstrating quite some political intelligence.
So maybe that is my aim, to see the conference end on Wednesday with a party working together to win power and to use that power to bring about change in Britain. I want to see a country for the many not the few again before I die and I want to have hope that my children, grandchildren and their children will enjoy the benefits that I enjoyed.
So now I will start cooking and perhaps open a nice bottle and raise a glass to that hope.
I am looking forward to tomorrow.
06.30 Sunday 24 September
Brighton
The seagulls woke me at six o clock, seven by my Spanish internal clock.
The house where I am staying with other Labour International delegates is within sight of the sea and sound of the gulls. I arrived last night too late to pick up my delegate credentials, so I must get there to the conference early this morning to pick them up. Fourteen of us met up last night for a drink and a planning session but finding a restaurant which could take that number in the centre of Brighton packed with conference delegates was too much and in the end we had to split up into smaller groups. I was lucky and enjoyed a very good Indian meal and great company.
This morning we have a meeting of Labour International planned for 09.30 but the time of the formal opening of the conference has been brought forward to 10.30 and apparently, we need thirty minutes to get through security. This is the first of many clashes today – our Labour International fringe meeting about the rights of migrants clashes with many other events.
This morning’s meeting of Labour International is an important one as we have grown from around 800 members to over three thousand since Corbyn was first elected leader and managing to keep that many people, spread across the world needs a different kind of organisation. In the past the few physical branches, mainly in Spain, France and Belgium have played a key role but now the vast majority of members are too separated for this to be feasible.
So we have already started using software called Zoom to organise online meetings, and by varying the times of these meetings, some in the mornings some in the evenings, we can accommodate the different time zones where people live. But not everyone feels comfortable with the different technologies and many older members do not like using Facebook, for example. I do not have a smartphone, from choice, but now, here in Brighton I realise that not being on Whatsapp is a distinct disadvantage.
I think the variety of experience that an international group like Labour International can bring to the Labour party, to policy making, for example, is really important and so we must all work together to find the best ways we can work together. I am looking forward to the meeting.
I haven’t even seen the conference centre yet, it was too late last night so I have no idea what to expect. It’s going to be an interesting day!