DELEGATES to the trades council conference voted this weekend for a motion mandating the councils to begin discussion and debate on how working-class people can best secure political representation.

Moving the motion, Derby’s Bill Greenshields explicitly stated that this was not a call for a new party “cobbled together and presented to the class,” but a “step in rebuilding the working class movement.”

Northampton delegate Roy Mendell said that it was not the time to build a new party, but that the “priority must be to build an effective resistance.”

And Jim Thakoordin said that this was one of the most important motions and urged delegates to go back, do something practical and “ignite the movement.”

Conference heard that the Labour Party leadership election and the Labour conference “must not see the crisis in working-class political representation continue.”

Mr Greenshields urged the “need to discuss (it) as a class” and “raise the temperature in both parliamentary and extra-parliamentary arenas.”