ALT On the CAC’s Decision to Block our Motion on Water Ownership We are profoundly concerned that the Conference Arrangements Committee (CAC) has denied the Labour movement gathering in Liverpool the opportunity to debate public ownership of water. It is a policy supported overwhelmingly by the public and globally the norm. That such an important question about the future of an essential public service can be stifled by faction-driven procedure should concern everyone who wants Labour to be a confident, outward-looking political movement. Our Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, put it well when Mainstream was launched last year: “We’ve got to get beyond this culture where everything’s a threat. If people are speaking out, it can actually be an opportunity to make changes.”

ALT That principle matters. Labour will need bold ideas and serious debate if our government is to deliver the scale of change the country needs. Conference should be a place where our movement can test those ideas, challenge established thinking and develop new answers together - not one where important debates are prevented from taking place. If Labour is to build the movement and the programme capable of changing the country, the Party must rediscover its confidence in its members: their ideas, their experience, their willingness to challenge orthodoxies and their capacity to think big about what a Labour government can achieve.

ALT Bar chart of Queen’s Park (Brighton) election results: Green leads with 50.13%, Labour 35.3%, Reform 7.04%, Conservatives 4.2%, and Lib Dems 3.2%. Green gain from Labour.