Disability Labour has slammed the Party as “institutionally ableist” over a proposed downgrade to equality roles in CLPs. In a twitter thread, it says “disabled people feel unwelcome in our own party.”

The Party affiliate declares itself “shocked and appalled” and accuses the Party leadership of enabling “even deeper marginalisation” of Party members. The criticism comes after the Party recently rolled back its commitment to implement the  UN disability convention into law.

The Party was insisting until at least July this year that a Labour government was “fully committed” to incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) into law. The pledge was part of the Party’s manifesto at the last general election in 2019. Labour leader Keir Starmer backed the policy during his leadership campaign in February 2020, but it has been omitted from recent National Policy Forum documents that will form the basis of Labour’s next election manifesto.

The Party leadership has also been criticised by disability groups for refusing to scrap chare charges (unlike the Lib Dems).  The Party was accused of caving in to “powerful vested interests” after failing to include any reference to scrapping charges in the NPF documents.

Labour’s leadership was previously criticised after it abandoned proposed democratic structures for disabled – and BAME – members last year. This was part of a wider silencing of members’ voices within the Party.  

Momentum has launched a statement which has gained over 600 signatories in under 24 hours. It says that it is “shameful for the Labour Leadership that the party’s own disability affiliate has been driven to this.”

Yesterday, Labour’s National Executive Committee backed leadership rule changes which abolished the requirement for local CLPs to have guaranteed equalities places  – for youth, disabled, LGBT+ and BAME – on their executives. The proposed rule changes will now go to a vote at Party Conference next month. They have attracted widespread criticism, including from the Open Labour Group.

Tessa Milligan, Open Labour co-Chair said: “It’s a kick in the teeth to those who are young, LGBT, disabled or from an ethnic minority. It sends all the wrong signals. The justifications for this change are risible.”

The NEC also plans to scrap Corbyn-era rules that empowered CLPs to send more motions to Party Conference. This could significantly curb Conference’s power to debate a wide range of issues.

The downgrading of Conference as a policymaker and the elevation to that role of the opaque and sometimes labyrinthine National Policy Forum is a further blow to holding the Party leadership accountable. If the change is passed by Party Conference, members will have a much shorter time frame to submit motions and the parameters of acceptable motions will be drastically restricted.

A Momentum spokesperson said: “These proposed changes represent yet another attack on the rights of Labour members from a Starmer leadership which is patently hostile to party democracy. From Parliamentary selections to policy-making, the anti-democratic clique at the top of the party view members not as the lifeblood of the party, but as a problem to be managed. It’s clear they want to take Labour back to the bad old days of a small elite casting down decisions from on high.

“Worse still, they are showing a cavalier disregard for minority communities by attempting to abolish guaranteed roles for BAME, disabled and LGBT+ members. We urge all stakeholders in the labour movement to stand up for a democratic and pluralist party, in which all members are respected.”

The latest  curbs on Party democracy and the fight for equalities comes less than a week after the Party’s Women’s Conference was downgraded from a two-day to a one-day event.  Momentum, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy and Labour Women Leading have launched a petition  urging the Party to revive the two-day, stand-alone event. They claim it is a “clear breach” of the Party’s own stance following the democracy review not to hold it separately from Party Conference.

Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lccr/2865509591. Creator: The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC 2.0)