Conference 2024 – Setting out our vision for left unity

Following our launch conference in July 2023, the Social Justice Party held its first annual conference on the 9^th November 2024. Held at the Coliseum in Whitby, party members took the opportunity to set out their views on how socialists in Britain should go about uniting into a single political organisation as well as electing new national officers and moving motions and amendments.

Since September, the Social Justice Party has been involved in discussions with other socialist parties and organisations through involvement with a group called Collective, whose aim is to power the formation of a new UK-wide political party. In lieu of being able to attend a meeting of Collective in Birmingham being held on the same day as our conference, the SJP was asked to provide answers to two key questions “Do you want a new credible party?” and “Do you agree there is some urgency i.e. before local elections we need an inclusive organisation and a pathway to party in reasonable time?”. The SJP’s National Co-ordinating Committee drafted two responses which were approved by conference attendees unanimously:

Conference also oversaw a change in our national officers. Conference thanked the incumbent Chair Simon Chester and Vice-Chair Gareth Stephenson who were both stepping down and without whom the SJP would not have been created and then registered as an official political party. Thanks should also go to those officers and delegates who joined the National Co-ordinating Committee throughout our first year as a party and played crucial roles in membership co-ordination and developing our media capabilities.

During conference, party members voted to include making housing a human right a permanent part of our policy platform. A commitment to “Homes for All” was added to 1.2.4 to the party’s constitution which covers essential items for the party’s manifesto.