Uncertainty over the date of the general election threatens to overshadow the production of Labour’s general election manifesto next year, as speculation continued this week over whether Gordon Brown should call a snap March poll.
The start of January will see Labour party activists receiving suggestions for Labour’s general election manifesto – but only if they respond to the party’s published policy documents.
Constituency representatives on Labour’s National Policy Forum are due to begin collecting responses to The Choice For Britain, the policy document released by manifesto co-ordinator Ed Miliband earlier this year. The responses will be passed onto Mr Miliband as he meets union leaders and other wings of the party in the run-up to the election.
But although the Labour leadership is guaranteeing that policy representatives will have the opportunity to pass on all feedback, activists were uncertain this week of how the manifesto process would work.
No 10 is understood to be unsure whether or not to hold an early election in March, while there is no deadline for responses to Mr Miliband’s consultation.
All feedback is expected to be framed around The Choice For Britain and last year’s NPF report, limiting opportunity for new policy suggestions.
Unions are meanwhile thought to be unhappy at the policymaking arrangements after Labour’s joint policy committee decided not to hold a full-scale “Warwick IIB” policy forum next year – mainly due to lack of money and staff.
They regard the “Warwick II” agreement reached last year – which remains current policy – as an unfinished document.
Alex Smith, editor of the community website LabourList, who sent a shopping list of policies voted on by nearly 1,000 site readers to Mr Miliband last month, said: “I don’t know what further opportunity there’ll be to influence the manifesto. It does concern me. It’s not clear and it’s not clear enough.”
Mr Smith said he expected a response next year to the policies, which include raising the income tax threshold to £10,000, renationalising the railways and free NHS prescriptions. But he criticised the Labourspace website Mr Miliband set up to allow policy suggestions as “a bit of a sop” and poorly resourced.
National executive committee member Peter Kenyon attacked the decision not to hold another policy forum. “Whatever the faults of the NPF, if you have an agreed system for formulating policy, you should continue with it. There’s nothing to prevent the party having an event.
“There’s a section of the NEC that thinks it’s quite important that the party does have an event”, he added, saying it would be good for morale and present a “united front”.
The final policy meeting is due around two weeks before polling day, where MPs and elected party officials will be asked to amend and approve a pre-printed policy document.
