Tagged with Party democracy

Labour must unite to voice the anger of a working class revolt against political elites

workers unitedMost Labour voters who backed Brexit did so because of the greater insecurity and drop in living standards they have suffered because of the effects of neoliberalism and austerity.

It was, as Owen Jones wrote a “working class revolt against the political establishment” achieved through the “furious, alienated working-class votes” cast against “the lack of affordable housing; the lack of secure jobs; stagnating living standards; strained public services” albeit seen through the prism of immigration and in a country divided between regions and nations, between generations and between metropolitan centres and their peripheries. Continue reading →

Labour right seek to curtail council selections and leadership electorate

The FixersLabour First calls itself the voice of Labour’s “moderates” dedicated to keeping the party “safe from the organised hard left, and those who seek to divert us from the work of making life better for ordinary working people and their families.” Yesterday its secretary, Labour national executive candidate Luke Akehurst, announced in a letter to supporters  that it is setting up local groups across the country. Unlike Momentum, whose local groups have a public campaigning role and seek to bring new members into the party, Labour First‘s objectives are purely factional – euphemistically explained as “a space where Labour moderates can meet up informally and build networks with like-minded people.”

It also announced that it intends to promote dramatic changes to Labour’s rule book to: Continue reading →

The slow death of the Tory party

Boris pantsAfter months of tedious Labour infighting, the moment for its long hoped-for eclipse by Tory party divisions has finally arrived. So-called blue-on-blue action is doing a good job of exposing Tory idiocy on all sides of the referendum debate. Ministers – particularly those on the leave side – are wonderfully showing up their stupidity. And last but not least the bumbling, amiable mask Boris Johnson has hidden behind for too long has slipped and the face of an unprincipled chancer is daily in the press and politics programmes.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe this will be enough to rip the Tory party apart, even if matters get pretty fierce and it falls to playground name-calling. Thankfully, there are other shenanigans afoot that might put the long-term health of the party Conservatives in jeopardy. Continue reading →

Centralisation versus democracy: Labour’s national executive makes its choice

The NECThis afternoon, Labour’s national executive (NEC) will discuss under the rather dull heading “NEC Terms of Reference and Committees” an important matter: how much power should lie with its grassroots members. Most NEC members understand that what the rulebook says about the primary purpose of the NEC being to “provide a strategic direction for the party” has been nothing but fiction for the last two decades. Most of them are elected by the party’s membership or affiliates, and they want to play the role to which they were elected.

To understand how the balance of power has changed over time we need to look at the development of a federal party, in which power was distributed amongst its various components – the executive, the trade unions, the leader and the parliamentary party – into the centralised party it became under Blair and Brown. Ironically, the process of concentrating power in the leader started as an unforeseen consequence of electing the leader by a wider franchise, a democractic reform I and many others sought in the late 1970s. It has had the same effect in other parties. Continue reading →

What Labour now needs is informed debate

Jeremy Corbyn Whose PolicyEveryone, even people who opposed him, understand that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader was a signal of a deep desire for change among Labour members and supporters. I have never agreed with all Jeremy Corbyn’s views but I was pleased to vote for him and, on reflection, I am glad that I did so. After all, the alternatives promised at best no change to Labour’s received wisdom about “electability” (Burnham and Cooper) or even a regression to undiluted Blairism (Kendall).

Corbyn’s election announced the possibility (but little more than that) of a new path for Labour. One of the keys to that new path was to be the full involvement of the mass of party members in policy formation. The view that Party members were to be regarded as a resource rather than something to be manipulated to get support for policies decided in advance was something of a breath of fresh air. Continue reading →