Tribune rally opened by @zarahsultana: “Want to open this rally with solidarity for our comrade Andy McDonald.” (Cue enormous applause). Says the current Labour leadership is “shameful.” Attacks the “Blairites.” #Lab21
Sultana attacks the “Blairite clique” which she says is dominating the leadership, “gathering in drinks receptions with Peter Mandelson” [boos] “reliving the 1980s and 1990s.”
More cheers when Sultana says “it’s an absolute disgrace that the leadership have let a scum newspaper have a stand at conference this year.”
.@ronanburtenshaw editor of Tribune: “They want people to go home and believe that politics is to be done only by a bunch of corporate shills in Westminster. We say- never.”
Burtenshaw: “This whole Starmer project isn’t about making the Labour Party more electable. It’s about making the party safe for the powerful.”
Asks crowd if they’ve read Starmer’s leaflet. Laughter. “It’s a waste of time!”, someone shouts,
Asks crowd if they’ve read Starmer’s leaflet. Laughter. “It’s a waste of time!”, someone shouts,
Burtenshaw: “Those policies we stood on in 2017 and those policies we stood on in 2019- we’re going to keep standing for them.”
Next up Rebecca Long Bailey
Huge cheers, chants of “Rebecca Long Bailey, four day week, no surrender”
Huge cheers, chants of “Rebecca Long Bailey, four day week, no surrender”
RLB: “Amidst [the pandemic], we should have been attacking the government, not supporting them with some misguided notion of national unity...but no, sadly over the last few days we’ve been a party which has been more concerned with gerrymandering its own election policies.” 
RLB: “something which has disappointed me this week, as democratic socialists- the clue is on the back of our membership cards. we’ve got to commit to public ownership of rail, broadband, energy companies...privatisation has failed, utterly.”
RLB: “I haven’t spoken to Andy McDonald yet but if it’s true that we were saying we shouldn’t advocate a statutory sick pay at the rate of the living wage- then what is the point of the Labour Party?”
Dave Ward, Gen Sec CWU: “Keir’s got a chance to set out his vision on Wednesday- it’s not going to cut through.”
Ward gets huge applause for saying CWU is going to take money away “from the Westminster elite” and give it to the “real people” in Labour arguing for collectivism
Says they’ll be paying its affiliation fees but “targeting the rest of the money to where it’s better spent”
Says they’ll be paying its affiliation fees but “targeting the rest of the money to where it’s better spent”
Enter the left’s man of the hour. @AndyMcDonaldMP greeted with chants of “Andy! Andy! Andy!”
McDonald: Comrades, it’s been the honour of my life to serve in the Shadow Cabinet...I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart comrades, for the support you’ve shown me tonight.”
John McDonnell: “I saw someone on the way up, I asked them what they thought of conference: what a shitshow, they said. It’s falling apart.”
McDonnell recalls the period where much of the Shadow Cabinet and shadow ministers resigned from Corbyn’s shadow team: “good riddance”, McDonnell says
Shouts of “scabs!” from the floor
Shouts of “scabs!” from the floor
McDonnell: “a lot of people said that, you know, you’ve become an elder statesman. After this last week- sod that for a laugh. I’m so angry.”
McDonnell: “What kind of leader, in their first real in person conference, wants to debate the means by which you pick his successor?”
McDonnell on the Starmer pamphlet: “We were promised 14000 words. There’s 11500- so clearly that 2500 was where the politics was.”
Jeremy Corbyn takes to the stage
“I want to say a thank you to so many people who have been so supportive of me.”
Mentions an FT editorial which cited both he and Bernie Sanders as principally responsible for changing the conversation on austerity.
“I want to say a thank you to so many people who have been so supportive of me.”
Mentions an FT editorial which cited both he and Bernie Sanders as principally responsible for changing the conversation on austerity.
Corbyn: “Conference ought to be the place you debate policy...so what do we discuss? The rule change for a leadership elex which isn’t in the offing anyway...all the rule changes being put forward empowers the PLP...being an MP cannot and must not give you control over the party”
Corbyn now effectively presenting the alternative leader’s speech, the sixth Corbyn conference speech which never was.
Corbyn: “not being in office is a lot worse than being in office, obviously...but you’re not a god, you’re not infallible, you’re not superhuman. It’s the strength of movements which bring about change.”
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