LPAND Manifesto Motion passed

Message from one of our Neurodivergent Labour Organising Group members, Lucy Stokes:

“Excellent news comrades.

The Autism/Neurodiversity Manifesto motion for St Thomas’s branch in Dudley North constituency has been unanimously passed.

Here is the motion:

Labour Party Autism / Neurodiversity Manifesto

St Thomas’s Branch Labour Party welcomes the drafting of a specific Labour Manifesto on Autism/Neurodiversity.

We note that this process has been overseen by a team of neurodivergent Labour Party members and supporters convened by John McDonnell MP and has had input from trade unions and campaign groups.

We note that autistic, dyslexic, and dyspraxic people, and people with attention deficit disorders, Tourette’s, obsessive-compulsive disorders and other neurodivergent conditions experience a great deal of hostility, distress and disadvantage in our society, and that strong Labour policies on this issue can make a real difference to people’s lives.

We support the draft Manifesto’s core principles of the social model of disability; the neurodiversity approach; opposition to austerity; socialism, democracy and solidarity; and ‘nothing about us without us’.

We welcome the Manifesto’s policies, including commitments to stop and reverse cuts to services; provide access to diagnosis/recognition for all; fund and organise education to meet neurodiverse needs; place a legal requirement on employers to make workplaces and working conditions more equal and accessible and less hostile; and add ‘neurological status’ as a tenth protected characteristic under the Equality Act.

We urge the Labour Party to adopt this Manifesto as its policy and to campaign vigorously to promote it.

Further, we welcome the launch of Neurodivergent Labour on 9 February 2019, and will publicise and support the development of this much-needed new organisation.

St Thomas’s Branch Labour calls upon Dudley North CLP to invite a speaker from the Neurodivergent Labour Manifesto Group to a future meeting and supports this motion.”

Onwards…