Labour’s national executive committee has met for the first time under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn amid signs that the issue of retaining or scrapping Trident nuclear submarines is to be put forward for a vote at the party conference next week.
It is expected that the issue will be accepted as a contemporary motion and so be permissible for debate. It will then be for the conference to decide the contemporary motions to be debated.
Corbyn has made it clear that he regards conference as much more important to the party’s democracy than previous leaders, and will take the decisions made there as close to Labour policy.
If Trident was allowed on to the conference floor, it is not certain that all the unions would support unilateral nuclear disarmament since some including the GMB have strong membership in the defence industry.
Both the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, and the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, have said the party supports the retention of Trident, and it will be a test of Corbyn’s political management to see if he seeks a compromise on the issue at least at conference. The party will need to have a position in the Commons when the issue is brought forward by the government next year.
Corbyn has backtracked on – or at least clarified – a number of policy issues since his election, but as a former chairman of Stop the War Coalition, he has always taken a strong line on Trident. For some time he has stressed that leaving Nato is not on his agenda, and would instead like to work for reform.
The new shadow defence secretary, Maria Eagle, has not yet expressed an opinion on the issue since her appointment.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament said: “It is time to comply with our obligation under international law to accomplish the total elimination of our nuclear arsenal. By doing so we would send a message to the world that spending for peace and development and meeting people’s real needs is our priority, not spending on weapons of mass destruction.”
Party conference has a system that gives half the votes to the unions and the remainder to the constituencies, so if three or four unions collectively agree a position, it is hard for constituencies to outvote them.
The NEC is not expected to put forward any rule changes of importance that would make it easier for constituency parties to deselect their MPs. The committee can put forward reforms that are implemented within a year, but it takes two years to implement constituency party rule changes.
Corbyn has assured Labour MPs that he is not seeking to change the rules or make it easier to deselect MPs, but many are anxious that they will come under pressure from new party members to follow a more leftwing position.
Only 20 Labour MPs genuinely supported Corbyn for the leadership, and there is an awkward standoff between him and some members of the shadow cabinet on a large range of issues.
In practice many MPs will find their seat subject to boundary changes and so open to reselection meetings. In the past the NEC has decreed the sitting MP should be assumed to be the candidate, but there is room for dispute where two constituencies are being merged.
Labour has also confirmed that Gordon Marsden, the MP for Blackpool South, has been given the high-profile brief of universities and skills. Marsden, in common with other Labour MPs, voted for the introduction of tuition fees and will be responsible for implementing the Corbyn commitment to end them, as well as to remove all accumulated student debt caused by the fees.
Former Labour minister and barrister Lord Bach will lead a review into the government’s legal aid cuts, the party has said. Changes to the legal aid system have been introduced by ministers in an attempt to reduce costs, which were said to have increased to more than £2bn a year before the reductions. But critics argue the reforms have hit poorer and more vulnerable people hardest.
Announcing the review, Corbyn accused the government of an assault on legal aid. He said: “This has resulted in many of our fellow citizens, often the poor and marginalised, not being able to get advice or representation when they are faced with legal problems such as housing, welfare benefits, debt and employment.”
Clive Lewis, the MP for Norwich South and one of Corbyn’s closest allies in the 2015 intake, defended the Labour leader’s decision not to sing the national anthem, saying: “If he decided not to sing the national anthem I would have defended him. I would have said I served in the army, I don’t think my love for my country and my patriotism can be defined by a song – from a very jingoistic period of our history – singing about what I believe to be a non-existent deity, saving an unelected head of state.”
Speaking to the House magazine, he said: “To try and define your patriotism based on that is preposterous. There are lots of things you can judge people’s patriotism by, and I think singing a song isn’t necessarily one of them.
“I understand that for lots of people the national anthem is extremely important. It is part of a ritual that they are part of, and I respect that. But there are also people who don’t believe in God, and perhaps are republican, and say: ‘I love my country. But I don’t want to sing that.’”
