Motion 33 – Right of Recall

Proposer: Jon Maxted

Seconder: Alexandros Schullman

Since the 2023 congress, the party has endeavoured to establish various groups and branches across the length and breadth of the UK and encourage them to carry out regular activities to build up the party in their local area. In the course of this, there have unfortunately been times where previously active branches have become paralysed by inactivity on account of an absentee secretary or interim coordinator. As they are often the only responsible officer for a given area, when these individuals fail to arrange regular meetings the local members are left with no means to carry out their local party activities in an accountable way. 

To combat this, congress will integrate a right of recall into our procedures concerning party branches via a motion of no confidence in the officer concerned, thereby creating a formal path through which rank-and-file members of party branches can replace inactive or inappropriate branch secretaries without requiring the direct intervention of the party’s head office staff or a regional coordinator. This encourages accountability from the party’s branch secretaries to their members, as well as shifting a degree of the administrative burden for local party branches from our already beleaguered head office, who would otherwise have to take measures to arrange a new branch secretary themselves.

For a party branch to initiate a motion of no confidence, the following requirements must be met:-

1. A minimum of 66% of all active members in a branch must sign a petition calling for it, with active membership defined here as members that have been recorded attending at least 3 Party events and/or monthly branch meetings in a year. 

2. The petition must include at least one listed nominee that has agreed to stand for election as a replacement branch secretary.

Alternatively, a motion of no confidence will trigger against a branch secretary automatically if they fail to organise and attend a monthly branch meeting for 3 consecutive months.

Once these requirements have been met, the petition must be forwarded to the next responsible officer, either a regional secretary or an appropriate member of staff from the head office in Birmingham. Once the petition has been acknowledged by a relevant officer as valid, the nominee/s for branch secretary must arrange a branch meeting within 1 month. The target of the motion of no confidence must be given fair notice to attend this meeting in order to contest the motion and be allowed to address the branch if they so choose. Once this condition has been satisfied, the branch will vote on whether or not to confirm the motion of no confidence, which passes on a majority vote of over 50% of members in attendance. If the motion is confirmed, the prior branch secretary will be removed from their position and an election for a replacement must immediately follow to select a new secretary from the pool of confirmed nominees.

---