Scaling down the party’s annual conference and moving it out West is a mature decision grounded in recognising the mood of the country post-Hurricane Melissa.

So says JLP Chairman, Robert Montague.

He was speaking at the party’s Belmont Road headquarters on Friday.

In addition to scaling down the conference, the JLP has also cancelled the public session.

The conference will now be held as a business session only on Sunday, November 15, at the Montego Bay Convention Centre in St. James.

The event will only be opened to delegates, in lieu of the usual mass rally that marks the occasion.

The move comes a year after the party cancelled its 2025 conference outright, saying it wanted to focus its energies on helping Jamaicans recover from the Category 5 hurricane, which made landfall on October 28, 2025.

However, JLP Deputy Leader, Desmond McKenzie, says there will be other venues for the party to engage directly with the public

Desmond McKenzie, Deputy Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party.