NEC Meeting - 2nd December 2025
Apologies for length but it was a long meeting, lots covered. I’ve tried to capture of what members will be most concerned about but apologies now for anything missed.
Deputy Leaders Report
Lucy Powell joined us in her new role as Deputy Prime Minister and explained that she will be doing this job “politically” and won’t get embroiled in the government side as she has no department to run and will be focused on this role full time. Her Lucy Listens webinars are underway and there is an appetite from members to engage.
She reflected on the recent deputy leadership elections and suggested that for future elections the role of affiliate members should be revisited so that the rules are equalised across the board.
She also spoke about supporting our elected members, MPs and Councillors, and how the role of an MP has changed even in the past 10 years. I asked specifically what support we can offer to those who are suffering abuse on a daily basis, especially our Councillors. In Sheffield some of our Councillors are the subject of harassment and abuse on a daily basis – some online and some in public – and we all have a duty of care to those in our party who are representing us to support them.
[Note: I had a separate conversation with Claire Reynolds about this and we are exploring ways of having some better support mechanisms in place. Please get in touch with me directly if you have ideas or you yourself as an elected representative are experiencing unnecessary abuse.]
Treasurers Report and General Secretary’s Budget updates
Mike Payne gave us a financial update explaining this year has been about rebalancing the budget post general election. Progress has been made but it remains challenging and the aim now is to get some stability and to use resources in a better way. We know that 2026 will be a harder year than this year because of the elections but we also recognise that this is cyclical as it is normal for donations to drop substantially straight after an election.
I was re-elected onto the Audit, Risk and Compliance Committee.
Innovation: Field, Data and Tech
We had an in-depth presentation led by Charlotte Walker Exec Director of Field Operations
Campaigning – winning the next elections will be by embracing all the technical advances. We need to be more agile, to use new technologies and to get different and deeper data on the doorstep. “Listen Change Win” is the key campaign strategy emphasizing strong local campaigns rooted in communities with the Pride of Place scheme – demonstrating the change that a Labour government is bringing in our communities.
So we need new tools with a real focus on digital transformation. We were shown how the new Field Planner tool will bring together tasks, training and metrics.
Labour Learns is a fantastic resource [Home – Labour Learn] with everything in one place. It’s an online training platform with courses and webinars, a CLP hub and a place that shares best practice from campaigns up and down the country.
Labour One [Labour One] – the new mobile app which is much more intuitive where you can view sessions straight from Contact Creator and explore new canvassing tools like road group maps. And Polling Day Dash is the new updated selections on polling day to get the most bang for our bucks.
And you can help the Party by sending any opposition party leaflets and intelligence to oppowatch@labour.org.uk
Preparation for 2026 elections
Anna Turley as Chair of the Labour Party took us through some of the stats and what we have coming up next year.
Currently Labour are 10 points behind Reform. Losses to other parties are not uniform as it varies depending on geography but it’s the Labour to Undecided that’s most notable.
Next year we will be defending about 2400 – 2500 seats that were last contested in 2022. These will be a much more urban set of elections than last year [pretty much all our major cities] and will include elections for the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Senedd. In the latter, where we are third in the polls to Plaid and Reform, there will be a new electoral system. In Scotland it’s pretty much a straight Labour vs SNP fight.
There are four key audiences [turn out; persuade; squeeze; suppression] and the key messages/themes will be around health, families and pride in place.
Labour will be reminding voters that Reform is not on the side of working people, threatening the NHS, and proposing tax cuts for the richest people. Reform are recycled Tories and Putin supporters.
There will be print and digital packages for both MPs and for CLPs and a new doorstep script with a conversation guide and the ability to tailor the script to accommodate local campaigns.
The Canvass tracker will record how well local campaigns are doing and changes to print branding. There are now four different campaign packs to use straight away – family hubs, NHS, Police jobs security and better rights at work.
I was pleased to hear that there is now a Constituency Readiness Review – which is basically a CLP health check to ensure that CLPs are supported, especially those with smaller membership numbers.
Internal Elections
Note the following important deadlines for annual conference and internal ballot timetables:
Monday 8th December: nominations open for National Committee of Labour Students and Young Labour
Monday January 5th: closing date for statements submissions/self-nominations
January 29: nominations close for the above elections. Ballots open 16th February and close March 2nd
January 2026: First email detailing deadlines and invitation to submit contemporary motions and
constitutional amendments. Delegate registration opens.
26 June 2026: closing date for CLP and affiliate delegate applications; nominations for National Officers and to National Committees
Annual conference: Sunday 27th September to Wednesday 30th September
On NPF: note these elections will be held this year at conference and will be voted on by delegates. Last year’s policy seminars at the annual conference worked really well and they will be continued.
I thanked Ellie Reeves as Chair of the NPF for the useful briefings NPF reps were getting from Ministers when important policy announcements happened. I requested that a timetable for the 2nd year of the consultation process be given some thought and communicated early to our reps.
Note: the NEC Equalities Committee Sub-committee protocol (terms of reference) have been revised and accepted.
Update from Claire Reynolds Executive Director of Stakeholder Relations
Her role covers the following areas: the Democratic Ecosystem; Youth and Students; Women; Faith and Communities; Business Relations; Wider Stakeholders – including grassroot organisations.
She reported progress with BAME Labour and a new committee in the New Year.
Report from Keir Starmer
He started by saying how good the budget was – protecting our public services, getting borrowing under control, bearing down on the cost of living, helping with energy bills.
Wages are now going up faster than prices. And our help with expanding free childcare and the ending of the two child benefit cap is lifting half a million children out of poverty. It is good for our economy if we give children the best start in life – and it is the right thing to do!
He took a number of questions including one on trial by jury explaining that the government is only proposing to look at what he called the middle ground cases ie where some could be done by a magistrate’s court. The fact is that only about 3% of cases are done by a full jury and so this adjustment is not as big as the press are making out. It would mean though that we can try and address the travesty of a victim waiting years to go to court. This is particularly harrowing for victims of abuse and violence. Those interested in the stats can look at
Rape: Levels of prosecutions – House of Lords Library or Review shows scale of police requests for rape survivors’ counselling notes | End Violence Against Women
We are undoubtedly up against a hostile media so we will have to find other media outlets.
On Nathan Gill – a 10 year sentence is a significant sentence. One NEC member asked for the government to launch an independent enquiry, which I wholeheartedly support – especially in the current climate of a press that seems to have an aversion to reporting anything negative on Reform. I’d go further and ask for an inquiry into the Russia report [remember all those redactions] and an examination of Russian interference in our political processes. There’s a petition here if you are interested.
Another NEC member suggested that the welcome £150 off energy bills may be even more welcomed – and more impactful – if it could be given next April as a one-off payment. The Prime Minister promised to go back and see if that was possible.
Other questions centred around cutting aids cases, community cohesion and asylum seekers, safety for train staff [very pertinent in the wake of the recent horrific stabbings] and tackling
violence against women and girls.
Finally, we touched on the offers to our young people through minimum wage initiatives and hoped that we can build a membership drive on the back of this as we are the party delivering for our young people.
Women’s Conference 2026
We revisited the thorny issue and a legal challenge of how we comply with our own Rule Book whilst also complying with the Supreme Court ruling and subsequent FWS judgment. My short report on the NECs response to the For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers [the FWS judgement] lays out the context.
Also, for reference the ECHR is a separate legal framework, and the Court did not explicitly consider its compatibility with its ruling, but the ruling has significant implications for UK law and equality practices. So this all has yet to unravel.
The ECHR is updating its guidance to reflect the ruling’s practical guidance problem but this has not been published yet – hence we are still operating under the same conditions and constraints of the UK Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
Against this backdrop we have to discuss what we can legally do with a Women’s Conference in 2026. Our legal advice and options were:
1. Restrict the main conference hall to women delegates with an open fringe programme
that includes all policy and panel discussions and networking sessions
2. Restrict the entire conference to women delegates [women as defined by the ruling]
3. No women’s conference 2026
We accepted option 1 as it balances legal compliance, political sustainability, fulfills Rule Book obligations, addresses participation and maintains engagement with the wider Labour movement.
Finally, as an aside and on a personal note I am particularly frustrated, as many are on the NEC are, that this is not of our making and pushes into a position many are uncomfortable with.