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LABOUR MP Diane Abbott and CWU leader Billy Hayes will lead tributes to Labour legend Vladimir Derer in a meeting at Parliament tonight.
Mr Derer, the founder and long-serving secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD), died earlier this year aged 95. He is credited with masterminding a change in leftwingers’ tactics in the 1970s and ’80s — which saw activists focus on changing Labour’s constitution to empower the rank and file rather than policy.
CLPD secretary Peter Willsman, who will chair the meeting, said: “Vladimir had a touch of genius about him in his perception and political strategy that no-one else in the movement has ever approached.”
Mr Derer’s greatest success was expanding the franchise for electing Labour’s leadership. Until 1981, only MPs could take part — but a CLPD campaign successfully introduced an electoral college made up of party activists, trade unionists and parliamentarians. In 2010 Ed Miliband was elected with union members’ support in spite of a majority of MPs voting for his Blairite brother David.
The meeting, which will take place in the Attlee Room in Portcullis House (above Westminster station) from 6pm tonight, will hear of Mr Derer’s work to promote the role of women and ethnic minority members in the party.
Other speakers include former MP Stan Newens, veteran peace campaigner Walter Wolfgang and Yvonne Bonnamy, an actor in the film who subsequently joined CLPD and later became chairwoman.
