Speakers at the Next Steps for Labour public meeting at Congress House in London called this week for much greater internal party democracy, retention of the trade union link and for the leadership to listen to the activists who actually knock on doors. More than 250 people packed into the TUC council chamber for a meeting sponsored by Progressive London, Tribune and the Communication Workers Union.
Lisa Nandy, the new MP for Wigan, said: “I have felt the anger of party members about the top down approach that came to characterise our time in office. Dividing ourselves from the people who live and work in our communities, who knock on doors and listen to the concerns of the electorate day in, day out, left us out of touch with the concerns of many of the people we were formed to represent.”
Ken Livingstone criticised Tony Blair for turning “conference as a place we debated party policy” into “a glorified photo opportunity”. He said Mr Blair showed “contempt for the trade unions as representatives of the working class” and did his best to stifle debate in the party.
Chris McLaughlin, editor of Tribune, said: “We want a leader to fit the policies, not policies to fit the leader” and those policies, he said, should include fairer taxes, getting rid of Trident and rejecting the philosophy of the free market.
CWU general secretary Billy Hayes had three key questions for leadership candidates: “What are your views on the war in Afghanistan, on Trident, and on party funding? I want to know where candidates stand on the trade union link.”
Mehdi Hasan of the New Statesman said Labour should apologise for deregulating the City, “messing up” on civil liberties and the war in Iraq: “David Miliband and Andy Burnham both voted for the war.”
And Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, said: “Let’s abandon the myth about the Liberal Democrats being progressive. They’re not progressive, they’re a franchise. They fill a vacuum that we create. When, in Islington, we stopped listening to people and dealing with their concerns, the Lib Dems sprang up.”
Meanwhile, more than 10,000 people have joined or re-joined the Labour Party since the general election. In the middle of last week people were joining at the rate of 20 every minute – one every three seconds. A party spokesperson said a significant number of new members gave the Lib Dems joining a coalition with the Conservatives as their reason for joining Labour.
