[Individual-members-EL] Prague Congress

Sun Dec 2 19:02:04 CET 2007

Dear All,

Bob's surname is 'King' Francis just in case you didn't get that reference to your surname.

In the first instance the thought was the representation should be for individual members across Europe although this is a bit tricky,  The Italians appear to have about 1000, have formed their own association and in that context I understand are seeking observer status as a 'friendship circle' or 'political organisation'.  These terms appear in various EL documents although I must admit I haven't chased the rabbit down the bunny hole to find out if the terms are in the statute or what!

There are about 30 German comrades and about 12 in England now.  Some have formally signed up (filled in the form, sent the 30 euro to Brussels) and some are about to do so.  There is also in England comrade Claudio from the Italian party who lives in Hertfordshire and comrade Stellios from the Greek Party (who is on the Executive Board from Synpaspismos) and lives in Glasgow.  He wants to be kept in the loop and probably means at some stage the England/Great Britain question comes up again as he's hardly likely to start the Left - Scotland on his own.  For now I'm just going to ignore Glasgow isn't in England  We're a small but perfectly formed group. 

There are also individual members in Belgium but I don't know a lot about them, Martin and Liberty in the Brussels office deal with them.

The idealistic position would be to say lets have a rep for all Europe as there appear to be about 1100 individual members with 1000 in Italy.  How do we decide who, how, for whom, however?  If there 1000 Italian comrades at first sight the rep should be Italian but then we're pan-European so does it matter?  Should we say individual members in each country should be entitled to seek at least one rep?  Bit rough if the numbers are small on the member parties although they get two each regardless of size. So should we seek a rep for the England netwrok and let other countries do what they want?  Straight away more questions than answers.....but these are what we need to get our heads around before January.

I'm off to Australia 6 December - early January.  I'll try to pick up my emails remotely as and when but the house I'm visiting is not the world's most high tech so I'll catch up with the discussion as I can before I go and see where everyone is when I get back.

Perhaps we should try to call a meeting in london in January, given we failed to put one together last January.  One year on maybe we'll have more luck.

The discussion should have pushed the thinking along a bit and then we can move towards trying to make some kind of decision both on whether we should continue to seek representation and secondly who.

Bestest

Stephen 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob 
  To: 'Francis King' ; 'Steve Spence' ; individual-members-el at listi.jpberlin.de 
  Cc: 'Andrew Stevens' 
  Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 4:38 PM
  Subject: RE: [Individual-members-EL] Prague Congress

  Comrades

  A little concerned that there should be any opposition to individual membership at all - I was under the impression this was supposed to be inclusive. As to how individual member are organised is a different matter.

  I agree with Francis, not only because he has an excellent surname but because this issue needs to be taken forward and Stephen is clearly right for the job.

  As an aside, the website is up and running - I'm not a programmer so it's the best I can do at the moment; anyone has suggestions, stuff they'd like to see on the site, contributions, links etc please let me know.

  Regards

  Bob

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  From: Francis King [mailto:francis at socialisthistorysociety.co.uk] 
  Sent: 02 December 2007 16:26
  To: Steve Spence; individual-members-el at listi.jpberlin.de
  Cc: Andrew Stevens; Bob
  Subject: Re: [Individual-members-EL] Prague Congress

  Hi all

  Thanks very much to Stephen for attending the congress, and for his very useful interventions and approach on the question of individual membership. I think that many of us who have joined as individual members have done so because we think that, as time goes on, there will be an ever-greater need for a genuinely European party of the left. This is necessarily a long-term project. There will almost inevitably be occasional tensions along the way with national parties who may resent the emergence of real or (more likely) imagined rivals in "their" countries. But if we handle the process carefully and diplomatically, it should cause any insurmountable problems.

  For the moment, I think we should seek representation on the EB, and that the matter should be discussed among the individual members so that we can put forward someone who can genuinely claim to represent our viewpoint. Stephen's approach here has been absolutely correct. I hope we have this discussion soon, and that we reach some kind of consensus.

  Regards

  Francis King (individual ELP member, England)

    ----- Original Message ----- 

    From: Steve Spence 

    To: individual-members-el at listi.jpberlin.de 

    Cc: Andrew Stevens ; Bob 

    Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2007 3:24 PM

    Subject: [Individual-members-EL] Prague Congress

    Dear All,

    I attended the November Prague Congress of the EL as an individual member from England.  There were a number of individual members from other countries there.  Germany and Italy in particular.  

    The Congress material and decisions can be viewed through the EL website.  I wanted to report briefly to this list on some indivdual member matters.

    Firstly the statute was amended to enshrine individual membership in the Party.  The wording that related to a 'period of experimentation' was removed.  Individual membership is now a firm part of the statute of the EL although in countries with national member parties those parties have the right to veto individual membership  

    The German individual members network had organised an individual member stall with a banner leaflets etc in the Congress registration area.

    I got to speak at the Congress and did so on the issue of individual membership, reported on the EL individual member network in England, mentioned our new basic website www.theleft.org.uk and suggested the Party needed to do more to encourage individual membership.

    Some individual members at the Congress were very keen to run someone for the Executive Board and I was asked if I would run.  The Congress has the power to elect 'other' EB members.  In the discussions with the Secretariat and amongst ourselves on this matter the following became clear.

    1. The EB had had no chance to consider such an option.  It had not been discussed.  Whilst 

        this was recognised there was a certain frustration as individual members had submitted a

        number of issues to the Congress and none were placed on the agenda.  The EB question

        had arisen partly as a result of this.

    2. Individual members had not canvassed whether this should be done and who the candidate

       might be.  It felt unfair to seek to advance the question without such a discussion amongst

       individual members.

    3. There was a concern that the national parties which are opposed to individual membership may

        react very negatively to such a proposal being 'dropped' on them.  Others thought we should

        press ahead, that the national parties needed to be challenged on the matter.

    It was agreed that if the Executive Board would give consideration to this issue at its next meeting then we would be prepared to hold back from nominating a candidate at the Congress and accordingly I declined to stand for the Executive Board.  There was some discussion as to whether Uli or Mike from Germany should run instead but in the end it was agreed that they would not.  As I understand it the Executive Board will consider the question in January.

    Uli spoke on the floor of the Congress on Sunday morning to express the concern of individual members that they should enjoy rights within the Party structures.  Someone was supposed to give the opposite view but didn't turn up so Uli got a clear run.

    A number of speakers during the Congress supported individual members including a comrade form 'The Left' in Luxembourg, with the Hungarian national party in opposition. 

    I am asking members of the individual member network in England whether they are happy for us to seek representation on the Executive Board and I would also ask members of this list to express their view. If anyone has an objection please let it be known.

    I don't know whether we'll be asked to send someone to put a view forward to the EB in January. At the moment Uli, Mike and myself have taken the opportunites to advance the individual member question in discussions because we have tended to be the ones there and involved.  If anyone has a view on this or thinks other should play a role, let us know.

    At the moment the plan would be to advance the debate on the EB in January and depending on the response to move the question forward from there.

    Best wishes

    Stephen Spence

    Individual Member

    The Left -

    European Left Party

    England

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