Every autumn, UK political parties hold annual conferences. For all parties, conferences are an opportunity to engage and connect with their membership, to generate media debate and coverage, to raise revenue and in some cases, party conferences have constitutional significance and play a key role in their policy development and position setting.
Political party conferences are, in some ways, like any other conference – the format is generally predictable, with mainstage keynote speeches, panel sessions and presentations, limited choice of food and long days on your feet. Political party conferences are, however, different from other events in that outside of mass lobbies in UK Parliament, it is the only opportunity to engage with the majority of politicians within a short period of time in a small geography.
What is also common of UK political party conferences is that there is no attempt by the party to control the overall programme of activity that occurs from the hundreds of organisations who book space for advocacy, engagement, and promotion. This means that there are dozens of choices at any given time of the day as to what a participant might choose to attend. Competition for attention is high, and consequently, events need to be high-impact and high value to keep people in the room.
It is a typical feature of conference that participants swiftly move from event to event, often scheduling informal meetings in between events in all manners of locations.
For the Labour Party, their conference is led by the National Executive Committee, the Labour Party's governing body and is central to their constitutional process. Labour Party delegates from trade unions, affiliated groups and constituency parties put forward motions and vote on them, deciding the party's platform and policy positions for the year.
