Momentum retains management of Socialist Well being Affiliation

Left wing group Momentum has retained management of one of many Labour Celebration’s affiliated socialist societies. The Socialist Well being Affiliation (SHA) is the social gathering’s major physique campaigning on well being points and has been affiliated to Labour for over 90 years.

Mark Ladbrooke was re-elected because the chair of SHA. He shall be joined on the committee by a majority of different Momentum-backed candidates.

With Ladbrooke as chair, the SHA has repeatedly clashed with the labour management, significantly over the position of the non-public sector within the NHS. The SHA has criticised shadow well being secretary Wes Streeting’s assist for utilizing non-public hospitals to deal with present backlogs within the well being service. In a statement launched in January, the group stated that Streeting was “fallacious” to recommend that the non-public sector had larger capability to clear backlogs or that it was extra environment friendly.

Ladbrooke, alongside re-elected SHA secretary Harry Stratton and re-elected SHA treasurer Esther Giles issued a joint assertion celebrating their victory within the elections. The assertion learn, “SHA members recognise that accelerating strikes to combine non-public suppliers into the well being service will drain funding from the NHS and switch it right into a mere model for a large number of personal corporations- all extracting shareholder returns and reducing companies so as to take action.

“Huge companies have captured prime NHS our bodies with the intention of funnelling NHS assets into their pockets. They practice few- if any- employees and keep a parasitic position within the sector. Members of Labour’s entrance bench are deeply mistaken in the event that they consider these companies will resolve the catastrophic issues attributable to many years of neoliberal austerity and repair cuts.”

Sasha Das Gupta, Vice-Chair of Momentum, additionally welcomed the outcomes. She stated, “Labour members, commerce unions and the general public all agree – we have to finish the scourge of NHS privatisation. Shamefully, nevertheless, Starmer and Streeting are fully out of step with the temper within the social gathering and the general public – they appear to assume the privatisation agenda which helped get our NHS into this mess is the way in which out. We’ll work to carry them to account by each means obligatory, in order that the following Labour manifesto guarantees to kick out the non-public sector from our NHS, as soon as and for all.”

Candidates from different wings of the social gathering have been crucial of the way in which during which the elections have been run. A statement signed by 17 candidates within the elections to the central committee known as for the resignation of the returning officer, requested for the Labour Celebration to assessment SHA’s affiliation and alleged irregularities inside the electoral course of.

The total breakdown of the election outcomes might be discovered here.

The SHA is one in all 20 socialist societies affiliated to the Labour Celebration, together with the Fabian Society, LGBT+ Labour and BAME Labour. Socialist societies are membership organisations which – like affiliated commerce unions – have a proper position inside the Labour Celebration’s choice making constructions, with members of affiliated societies having a vote in management elections.

Chris Jarvis is head of technique and growth at Left Foot Ahead

Picture credit score: FunkDooby – Creative Commons

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