The policy reform initiative driven by Ed Miliband promised much. Labour members, individually and through their constituency parties and trade unions responded in considerable numbers, making a wide range of suggestions for reform. Party members saw this as a chance to start afresh after the banality and control-freakery of New Labour. But what is taking shape is hardly a qualitative change. The final document, being put together by Ed Miliband and Peter Hain, is certainly not banal and makes an effort to respond to many of the suggestions made by the party organisation and members. But in places there seems to be a lack of appreciation of the importance of the formal institutions of party democracy and there is a major attack on the power of the unions within our party.
Previous programmes of “consultation” under other leaders have been used as a cover for putting forward what the leader had always wanted. Unfortunately, there is a strong suspicion that, to some extent, the same applies to Refounding Labour – particularly in relation to giving “registered supporters” votes in leadership elections, and in relation to reducing the union vote at annual conference.
Labour has some three million affiliated members who pay the political levy through their unions. This was always spelt out at the very beginning of the party’s constitution as follows: “There shall be two classes of members, namely; (a) affiliated members (b) individual members.” This clause has never been removed by the annual conference, but during the various consolidations and re-jiggings of the rulebook, sight of it seems to have been lost. For example, the proposal for “‘registered supporters” ignores the fact that some three million of our supporters are already members – affiliated members. So it is, by and large, only members of non-affiliated unions (teachers, civil servants, rail workers, fire fighters) who would comprise “registered supporters”.
Ed Miliband and Peter Hain are putting forward a range of constructive proposals about involving levy-payers at constituency level, but seemingly without realising that these people are all members, albeit affiliated ones.
Worryingly, they are also are proposing a three-pronged attack on the power of the unions within the Labour Party. They want registered supporters’ to have a vote for the leadership and deputy leadership by reducing the size of the union vote in the electoral college. They want to reduce the size of the union vote at the party conference by perhaps giving a vote to MPs and/or councillors and/or members of the National Policy Forum. This would destroy the current and justifiable balance of two equal wings in the party (50 per cent political and 50 per cent industrial). And they want to reduce the number of union representatives on the National Conference Arrangements Committee.
Many submissions to Refounding Labour, including from unions, pointed out that CLPs are underrepresented on the party’s National Executive Committee compared to the unions (six seats against 12) and that the NPF needs root-and-branch reform. The leadership seems to be ignoring these suggestions. Instead it is proposed that the powers of the leader are greatly enhanced at the expense of the NEC. They also want formal local government committees, district and county parties replaced by nebulous small groups of local officers, which would undermine the opportunity to make Labour groups and their leaders properly accountable. At this year’s party conference in Liverpool, delegates will be faced with a final document that is likely to be tabled as an NEC document. There may be undemocratic attempts to force this through in the New Labour way of take it or leave it. Even New Labour never attempted to force a decision on many different rule changes into one omnibus vote.
Pete Willsman is secretary of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy. This article will also appear in CLPD’s autumn newsletter
