Speech to Labour Party Special Conference 2014

Comrades
My CLP met jointly with Inverness and Nairn CLP in  December to discuss and agree our response to the Collins Report.
We agree with much of the principle and proposals in the Report.
There is a real need for our party processes and structures to be modernised in order to tackle the widespread public disengagement with party politics.
We are in favour of developing new models of membership and affiliation for individuals wishing to play a role in the party.
But we also believe that the principle of collective affiliation to the Labour Party - by Trade Unions and Socialist Societies - is a bedrock of our movement which needs to be retained and developed.
We need to build on collective affiliation to develop better and modern ways to encouarge individual participation in labour party democracy by both trade union members and labour supporters in our communities.
So we support the proposals for affiliated memberships and One Member One Vote in the Collins Report.
We support the NEC resolution.

Comrades, I represent a Highland CLP.

Maybe I should be apologising at this point about Danny Alexander.

Well I can tell tell you we are working on it.  

Our Dump Danny Campaign is up, running and gaining wide support.

You can expect a Highland Portillo moment in 2015.

In September this year we will have the most important vote in Scotland in generations.

A referendum where the YES campaign to split up the UK is led by the SNP and Alex Salmond.

A leader whose response to facts, the polls, to business, the Bank of England, the EU commissioners....

...., to Ed Balls and his future opposition Treasury colleagues......

......  is to say "I'm right, you're wrong".

Not so much "One Member One Vote" as "One Man, My Vote, My Way"!

That's why were better together in Scotland.

That's why were better together in the UK with a One Nation Labour Party.

Comrades, support the Resolution.

Thank you.