Surrey County UNISON branch

I disagree with Paul most members at national conference wanted to stop giving labour money regardless of what they do to us but thats not the same as breaking the link entirely - people inside and outside the labour party need to show support for what John McDonnell is trying to achieve - the campaign will and is already bringing a new lease of life to people with many joining/re-joining the labour party just to be part of the campaign.

Our union needs to break its ties with the brown agenda Prentis comments on browns speech were appalling - the only way we can do that is to force him to back a candidate who is standing on a platform of UNISON policies - John McDonnell and we can do this by getting all branches and then regions on side - Prentis can not continue to back brown when he is clearly not going to listen to anything the Unions have to say.

Breaking the link is not the answer - fighting back for what we want is.
http://www.john4leader.org.uk

New Labour.....old Tory.......
New Leader.... same policy....
If you don't support US foreign policy and privatisation then you cannot support Labour until they bring our troops home and support local services... UNISON out! 'Nuff said

No, In my view UNISON should not continue to support the Labour Party. It is easy to point out the reasons for this. Labour has consistently followed anti working class policies , which have resulted in mass privatisation of our services and at the same time have prosecuted an international agenda which has seen total support for US policy in the Middel East with the resultant deaths of thousands of civilians in Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.

The hard part is deciding what should we put in place of Labour. I am in favour generally in supporting the campaign for a new workers party, but am also clear that it has to be clear from the start how this party should be built. For instance it needs to be totally democratic, internationalist and for building a society that is based on , "from each according to his/her ability to each according to their need " rather than the present capitalist system that treats people as commodities rather than human beings. The early Labour Party would at times have supported all of the above . We therefore also have to be abuntantly clear right from the start not just that we are against the present system but also how a new socialist system would actually work, which implies buidling not just a new party but a new way of life!! I have not got time to go into this at this precise moment, but watch this space!

As a young member, my experience of the Labour Party didn't extend far beyond their election in 1997. Despite the initial optimism of that election and the rebuilding of public services since the last Tory Government, I could not find a good reason to tick the APF box on my membership form.

In 2006 with its membership halved since 1997 to 200,000 members, I see very little justification for our union to be affiliated to the Labour Party. Three years after the initial ODPM proposals, our Local Government Pension Scheme is still under threat alongside minimal and divisive concessions.

For me, New Labour is synonymous with the privatisation and marketisation of our public services; mass redundancies (100,000 civil service jobs to go) - The tactics of the previous Conservative Government. Instead of rolling back privatisation, New Labour has progressed privatisation to a whole new level with its crazy PFI schemes. New Labour means support for aggressive military interventions whether it be by British soldiers and weapons deals or standing idly by whilst US-backed regimes destroy innocent lives through bombing, murder, chemical attack and torture. Today there are many campaign organisations, supported by our union, that clearly stand against the policies of this Labour Government e.g. the defence of council housing, protecting the NHS from cuts and privatisation and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - all institutions created or upheld by pre-Blair Labour.

The Labour Party was created by the trade union movement and socialists in the 19th century, because working class people had no voice in Parliament to represent their needs. Up until 1995 the Party, at least by constitution, stood for the democratic control of the means of production by the workers. Today we have a party that lacks the democracy that even our own members have in UNISON. Hazel Blears gets 'promoted' instead of elected as Party Chair and Blair thinks he can just 'hand over' its leadership to Gordon Brown. The leadership also ignores conference decisions it does not like, such as renationalisation of the railways, curtailing foundation hospitals, PFI schemes and council housing privatisation. Alan Johnson would also like to cut the unions share of the vote from 50% to 15% - This means a cut for the voice of working people!

Progressive and sympathetic members still exist in Labour such as Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Simpson and John McDonnell. But their voices are lost to the 'tight grip' of Tony Blair and the admirers he surrounds himself with in the Labour Cabinet.

It is difficult to see how the party could be reclaimed because this would require working people to join a party that they fundamentally disagree with!

Democracy is a word that derives from the Greek - demos, "people," and kratos, "rule". Rule by the people: that is what we should stand for. I want to start by campaigning for a new party that's built by us and represents us - the workers.

I was at the UNISON national conference in June and it was clear that the vast majority of delegates wanted UNISON to break the Labour Link. This LABOUR government has attacked public services, attacked our pensions and led us into an illegal war in Iraq. UNISON should join with the railworkers' and the firefighters' unions and launch a new party based on the trade unions and ordinary working people.