Candidate(s):

Terry Conway – Nominated by Islington

Statement(s):

Terry Conway
Nominated by Islington 

I have been politically active since the 1970s in the LGBTQ movement, as a feminist and as a trade union activist. Over recent years with the deepening environmental crisis, especially climate change, I define myself as an ecosocialist.  I am a member of Socialist Resistance.

I am a passionate internationalist and over the last year or so have been heavily involved in campaigning against pinkwashing – by which the Israeli state tries to use its ‘support’ for LGBT rights to divert attention from  its war crimes against the Palestinian people.

I am co-facilitator of Islington Left Unity, and was one of the directly elected 10 members of the National Council from May 2013. I have been involved in the web team and in group, now branch, development as well as in the women’s LGBT and disabled peoples caucuses.

I am very happy that Left Unity has supported the principal of self-organisation since its creation and believe that the development of strong caucuses can only help the new party relate to working people in all our diversity.

I am excited at the opportunity that I think Left Unity has to bring together people from a range of different political traditions and none to create a genuine political alternative which the rapid move to the right of new Labour has made so necessary. I was previously involved in the Socialist Alliance and then in Respect  and think that the commitment that Left Unity has to democracy and collective working seeks to learn some of the negative lessons from Respect in particular.

Working class people are under massive assault in Britain and internationally. We need to build Left Unity as a political party rooted in communities, on the streets and in workplaces which can champion struggles wherever they arise, give people confidence that collective organising can win and work with likeminded activists and organisations across the globe. We need to be on the ballot paper to strengthen that fight – but elections are a tool to give us a wider audience not an end in themselves.

I was a supporter of the Left Party Platform.