Last year, for the first time, we tried out the idea of a Labour International Conference blog. The idea had been suggested by one of our members in Spain, Nina Davies, who was also a first-time delegate at the Conference. The blog was set up for us by Matt Heaney, now one of our LI Education and Training officers. It worked well, but some of us occasionally had access problems and also found that as delegates we were often very pressed for time. So this year we are going one step further: Aidan Constable, a Labour Germany member and one of our website admins, has offered to act as a kind of blog backoffice to make sure delegates can post effectively without having to worry too much about the technical ins and outs of blogging.

This year’s Conference will be a decisive one and a very interesting one for Labour International. Our rule change motion on Open Selection  is up for debate, and delegates will also be debating and voting on the Democracy Review. This looks likely to include recommendations on using video conferencing for meetings, where LI has been something of a trailblazer. I hope too that we can offer some insights into how Conference works: what does the CAC do? how do card votes work? what’s meant by “reference back”? …

We plan to also post from the National Women’s Conference, which will take place on Saturday, 22 September, the day before the main Conference starts, and no doubt there will also be updates from The World Transformed, which runs alongside the Labour Party Conference.

Rowan Shaw, LI Communications officer and delegate to Conference