On Friday I spoke at the Welsh Labour Grassroots fringe meeting at the Wales Laboour Party Conference. Delegates were still recovering from Tony Blair's speech in which he heaped praise on the policies being pursued by the Labour administration in the Welsh assembly. As virtually all of these policies and the basic direction of Labour in Wales run counter to New Labour's neo liberal philosophy and policy programme in England you can appreciate why delegates were astounded at his comments. Most somehow doubted that the Prime Minister had been converted to socialism on the road to Llandudno.
During the day on Friday it was confimed by Downing Street that the Prime Minister had been secretly negotiating with the Bush administration on the siting of part of the US "starwars" ballistic missile network on British soil. On Saturday speaking at the CND/Stop the War demonstration in Trafalgar Square I expressed my anger at the way in which as part of his legacy agenda Blair is seeking not only to bounce Parliament into a commitment to Trident renewal but also to offer up Britain as an aircraft carrier for the Bush starwars project. I will be raising this issue in Parliament tomorrow and I will be calling for support from other Labour MPs to reject this deal on Starwars.
We need a leader who serves as a British Prime Minister not as a virtual vice president of the USA. We need a peace Prime Minister.
Later on Saturday I spoke at the well attended AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. I am grateful for the overwhelming vote CLPD gave to a resolution backing my candidacy. This means that every left rank and file organisation in the Labour Party and in the trade union movement is backing my campaign.
I was also pleased to receive the public support of Tony Benn, Christine Shawcroft and Elaine Smith MSP in the letter they submitted along with others and published in the Guardian on Saturday.
