GFTU BGCM Minutes 2017

Hartlepool, for instance, and saying, “Do you want some help? Shall we do

something? Shall we get a stall out in the street?” So there are practical things we can do. May 22 nd is the cut-off point for registering to vote. I work within

the university on an ad hoc basis, but I also have access to all those students’

email accounts and I go in and speak to them, so I can tell them to go and

register, because since the rules have changed loads of students have not

registered to vote, so they are not in the game at all and it is the young people

that we really need to get on board.

But even going out and canvassing and knocking on doors, it can be quite

disheartening, particularly in a Labour stronghold, because people are so

disillusioned because they read these newspapers and they believe what they

read, so we are really, really up against it. But it goes back to everything that

everyone has said. We do not want a Tory Government, look at all the cuts.

Nobody has really mentioned immigration here at all and that is a big factor in

some areas where there is no immigration, there are no refugees, but it does

play on people’s minds and it goes back to the arguments of the reason you

cannot get a council house is not because of immigration. Even if those

immigrants were not here you would have the same problem. So we need to

have those clear cut arguments to respond to the Daily Express, the Daily Mail

remarks. We have got to be really clear on that. So there are practical things

we can do, even if you do feel restricted on what you can do within your trade

union. (Applause)

THE PRESIDENT: I would like to suggest that we have one more speech and then

we move to a vote and then the tea break.

BRO LEE MOON (Nautilus International): I just want to make a couple of points and

then a point of clarification that hopefully Manuel will cover in his right to reply

from Ian, because for me or for Nautilus, to start off with, the motion is not

actually asking for the individual unions to do anything. Like comrades in

NAPO, we do not have a political fund so we would find ourselves in a position

to vote against this motion if that was the meaning, if it was specifically asking

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