Deji Olayinka, UTAW branch delegate
CWU general conference started just three days after an election slaughter, which saw the public overwhelmingly reject Keir Starmer’s Labour Party at the polls.
It was initially scheduled to be a normal conference. But after multiple branches submitted motions for Labour Party disaffiliation, the National Executive Committee (NEC) changed the agenda.
The NEC proposed a special report that called for a continuation of their existing attempt to fight within the Labour Party. This stopped those original disaffiliation motions from being included, and gave branches just a few weeks to submit amendments to the NEC report.
Before the debate on the union’s relationship with the Labour Party began, Angela Rayner gave a speech to the conference. Another delegate from my branch suggested we walk out during Rayner’s speech and so we did.
Rayner said Labour should be judged by its actions not words, so I had to use time in my speech to explain that the 2025 Unite union conference overwhelmingly voted to suspend her Unite membership for her actions in the Birmingham bin dispute, where a Labour council, backed by Labour MPs, threatened fire and rehire on striking bin workers.
Renationalisation
My main point was to call for our union to disaffiliate so that we could use our resources to only support candidates, politicians and parties that advocate our policies – such as renationalisation of Royal Mail and BT – and fight for the wider working class.
General secretary Dave Ward asked that speakers include their party membership when they introduced themselves, and at three points across conference he talked about the Socialist Party’s influence. This year, I was the only Socialist Party delegate at the conference.
Dave Ward himself and several Labour members spoke against disaffiliation, arguing that the union has the chance to change Labour by remaining in it. I pointed out the role of the RMT rail union, which is not affiliated and yet was able to give the second biggest union donation to Jeremy Corbyn in his Labour leadership bid, and has achieved more in its campaign for renationalisation of the railways than CWU has in renationalising Royal Mail. Almost all the speakers called in were Labour councillors and members, and the vote was lost.
In the final item on the section’s agenda, Dave Ward introduced the NEC’s policy, which was a continuation of the existing approach. Unlike standard practice at previous conferences, there was no debate allowed on the item, the chair went straight to a vote.
The UTAW tech workers’ branch hosted a fringe meeting entitled ‘Labour disaffiliation: What might the future look like?’
Despite a long day of conference, the fringe was packed with over 50 attendees. Paul Holden, author of ‘The Fraud’, introduced the meeting with a deep dive into the sabotage of the Labour Party by the pro-capitalist right wing to stop Corbyn.
While Corbyn was Labour Party leader, the Socialist Party advocated for mandatory reselection and other democratic measures to enable the surging membership and the organised working class in the trade unions to gain control of the party and fight the inevitable sabotage by capitalist interests. Once Starmer won the leadership, we recognised the need for the trade union movement to put its resources into the building of a new mass workers’ party.
Angry mood of members
There was an attempt by some delegates and elements of the leadership to paint a picture that the mood for disaffiliation was being fomented by a minority misled by the Socialist Party. However, the facts proved different. A Facebook post by the CWU advertising that it “remains affiliated to Labour” was flooded with comments from members angry at the outcome.
And within hours of the vote, several members of my branch have complained too, with some asking how to opt out of paying a political levy to Labour. In fact, every time the CWU publicises its affiliation with Labour by sending members emails or letters, I receive angry complaints from members asking to quit the union or stop political funding. So much so that we’ve created a template response to explain that it’s branch policy to advocate for the CWU to disaffiliate!
A delegate from another branch suggested that this UTAW branch policy was achieved with a small minority in our meeting. But it’s a position that’s been voted on several times over the last few years. I am the branch chair, but the Socialist Party is wholly against the use of leadership positions to bureaucratically impose your will on members or prevent democratic debate.
Last October, a large branch meeting voted to support disaffiliation. The draft was shared to branch members and was emailed to the NEC with the request for “discussion at all levels of the CWU about our relationship with Labour and the need for a political strategy that supports our members taking action.
“Our branch would like you to help organise an all-member union-wide consultation, including meetings, about the best use of the union’s political fund, including the question of funding candidates outside the Labour Party who support CWU-agreed policy. We think that this could be a key part of establishing processes and practices that can engage the membership politically and raise their sights on what genuine political representation should be.”
