Unless the leadership gives more than lip service to the members, Labour renewal will stall, writes Robin Pettitt
One of the main controversies at this year’s Labour Party conference is whether or not to keep Gordon Brown’s organisational reforms from 2007. The most notable element of those reforms was changing contemporary and emergency resolutions on policy into recommendations for issues to be discussed by the National Policy Forum. The aim was to end the public debates that resolutions would usually spark.
Stifling conference discussion was part of the underlying purpose of Partnership in Power and contemporary resolutions were a holdover from the old policymaking process. Tony Blair and those around him wanted to get rid of resolutions completely in favour of conference delegates merely rubber-stamping NPF documents. Contemporary resolutions were the compromise the leadership had to accept in return for trade union support for PiP. Gordon Brown used his honeymoon period after becoming leader to get rid of resolutions completely, although with the option of “reviewing” the process after two years – in other words, at this year’s conference. Now there are moves to get them back.
To some extent, the debate over resolutions masks bigger issues in Labour’s policy making process. PiP has changed the nature of Labour conferences. From being known as the “favourite seaside bloodsport”, they are now little more than rallies celebrating the leadership and an opportunity to reward activists with free food and drink. Most CLP delegates who get to the rostrum more often than not use their precious few minutes to make a speech whose sole purpose is for them to then be able to issue a statement to their local press along the lines of: “Your local Labour representative celebrated/slammed the achievements/failures of the party”. Only resolutions prompted anything approaching actual debate and their transformation into polite suggestions for further study increased the prevalence of press statement speeches.
However, just reintroducing resolutions will not increase the influence of delegates on the parliamentary party’s policies. It would increase the number of debates and the possibility for leadership defeats, but leadership defeats have rarely if ever had any noticeable impact. From Keir Hardie through to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, Labour leaders have always been ready to ignore conference decisions with which they disagreed. Often, they have made deals with the trade unions about which policies should be approved and which rejected. Ultimately, though, while winning conference votes makes life easier for the leadership, conference defeats never made much of a difference. The conference is not and never has been the source of Labour policy except when the leadership and conference agreed. The reintroduction of resolutions should be welcomed, but for those who want Labour to be an internally democratic party that should be just a small step.
The challenge of building internal Labour democracy has to deal with three problems. First, policymaking is seldom a pretty sight. It involves sometimes fierce debates, often messy compromises and is generally not something that makes the participants look dignified. Second, the process has to be accessible to all members. Too often, debates about changes to the policymaking process are not genuinely about opening up the process, but ensuring that one particular group is in control. At various times in Labour’s history the policy making process has been controlled by specific factions within the party – usually from the right of the party, occasionally from the left. That does not benefit a party which has to attract a wide range of voters in order to win.
The great advantage of PiP is that it deals with both these problems. It allows for debates to take place out of the glaring eye of a conflict obsessed media, but with extensive, albeit currently largely unused, potential for exchange between members, their representatives and party leaders.
The fault with PiP is that it has not and cannot deal with the third problem in any kind of democracy: loser’s consent. For any democratic system to work, those who lose have to still accept the outcome. The implementation of widespread consultation and accessibility to all members should ensure that no group in the party loses all the time. The problem at the moment is that while members have little choice but to accept conference defeats, the leadership is not willing to do so and never has been. Loser’s consent in the Labour Party is all one way.
There have been numerous suggestions for reforming PiP – some constructive, some less so. However, no amount of reform is going to make any difference until the leadership is willing to accept defeats.
PiP could be the basis of the vibrant internal democracy which Labour has always claimed, with little basis in reality, was an integral part of the organisation. What is required for that to happen is a that PiP is fully and honestly implemented rather than perverted with an eye to closing down debate. Further the leadership should be willing to accept that a policy which has survived a process as long, complex and thorough as PiP could actually be a good policy, even if they do not like it.
So, what is needed for internal Labour democracy to flourish is not so much an organisational change but a cultural one.
The leadership should accept that PiP is actually a good system which could, if properly implemented, generate good policies with widespread support. How such a cultural change can be achieved is the big question, but if the discussion could move on from organisational tinkering to a debate about how a greater level of trust between leaders and members can be established, we would have come a long way.
Robin Pettitt is a lecturer in politics at Kingston University, London and a Labour Party activist
