Members hail vote as ‘turnaround from old war-supporting regime’

Labour members in Streatham may have accelerated the departure of now-LibDem MP Chuka Umunna by voting at the end of January to switch to an ‘all-member meeting’ format for their constituency meetings – Umunna supporters had tried to stop the switch by warning members Umunna would leave the party and start his own if it passed.

Umunna and his allies had long maintained an iron grip on ‘CLP’ (constituency Labour party) affairs by means of the old delegate-based structure.

After Umunna jumped ship – briefly – to the ‘Tinge’/CUK party in February, the newly all-member CLP celebrated by electing a left-wing executive – and have now taken a step further from what they consider the ‘bad old days’ by voting overwhelmingly to affiliate to Stop the War.

An email sent out to members by the CLP’s campaigns head confirmed the decision – and invites them to a demonstration at Downing Street this evening:

The beginning of the Streatham ‘Stop the War’ email

The core of the demonstration will be the delivery of a letter to Number 10 by the excellent Labour MPs Laura Pidcock and Emma Dent Coad.

The full text of the email reads:

On Monday night, Streatham Constituency Labour Party voted overwhelmingly to affiliate to Stop the War and oppose all future military intervention. This is a big decision for Streatham CLP, whose general committee voted in 2015 to support bombing Syria. Since then, the CLP has changed to all member meetings, which has enabled the wider membership to express its real opposition to war. At a time when America is once again manoeuvring towards war in the Middle East, we need, once again, to give full support to the anti-war movement to demand the UK not join the US’s recklessness. Jeremy Corbyn has been consistently right when urging caution in the past and we should listen now as he expresses doubt about the latest piece of dubious intelligence, in respect of Iran. Streatham Labour Party is proud to support him in opposing the move to war, opposes any future military action by the UK government and argues the UK must break with its special relationship with America to develop an independent foreign policy based on co-operation and diplomacy. Stop the War has been an essential voice in opposing the permanent state of war the UK has created, along with its allies, in the Middle East. We are proud to offer Stop the War our support, and to use the platform of the local Labour Party to promote Stop the War. Today at 5pm, Stop the War will be handing a letter to No. 10 alongside MP’s Laura Pidcock and Emma Dent Coad. Streatham CLP will be represented at Downing Street, and you are warmly encouraged to join us.

The event will run from 5pm to 7pm this evening. More details can be found on its Facebook page.

A Streatham member told the SKWAWKBOX:

What a turnaround this is in Chuka’s old war-promoting regime. All-member meetings have revived the CLP’s democracy and allowed us to affiliate formally to Stop the War and campaign for peace instead of bombing innocents in Syria, as happened previously.

SKWAWKBOX view:

What a turnaround indeed. Mr Umunna might just be grinding his teeth on his new orange rosette.

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