Tribune – news, features and comment from Britain's left-wing magazine

by Chris McLaughlin

A FRESH battle over reform of the Labour Party is looming following frantic Downing Street efforts to play down reports that Gordon Brown is planning to reinvent it in the mould of Barack Obama’s Democrats.

The damage-limitation operation was launched as the party engages in a review of Mr Brown’s last reform of the policy-making process in which some unions are preparing to call for their abandonment.

It follows selective leaking to national papers of a story that Mr Brown is planning to call on the party to learn the lessons of President Obama”s “people-powered” campaign.

Improving the campaigning and fundraising effectiveness of the party, for example through a more thorough application of internet opportunities, is an option which has received a wide welcome amid reservations about the effect on local person-to-person campaigning.

But the reports sparked speculation and concern among union leaders and members of the party’s National Executive Committee that Mr Brown was considering ripping up the rule book and turning the party into a loose federation of supporters with no membership fees and no “command-and-control” structure.

Number 10 aides were despatched to pour cold water on the reports in a ring-round to NEC members and the unions.

The reports were inspired by the fact that Mr Brown has written a foreword to a forthcoming Fabian pamphlet entitled The Change We Need: What Britain can learn from Obama’s victory, which outlines the proposals.

Mr Brown’s decision to pen the foreword is being seen as a personal endorsement of the need for a full-blown debate on internal party reforms, which Downing Street insists are not on the agenda this side of a general election.

However, to coincide with the review of the last reforms – which removed the right of parties and unions to submit motions for debate at the annual party conference – party headquarters have re-issued an extensive paper by Mr Brown first distributed in June 2007.

Many unions were sceptical about what was seen as the neutering of the power of party conference and there are indications that some are considering using the review as an opportunity to overturn Mr Brown’s reforms and return the right to vote policy through motions.

The issue is to be raised at next week’s meeting of the NEC where some members will be seeking clarification of the review process.

One member, Peter Kenyon, said: “It has to be open and transparent and give proper weight to views decided at collective levels within the party. This is an opportunity to revisit some important issues and we don’t want party members’ views disappearing into a black hole.”