In praise of slates for Labour internal elections

A debate has opened up on Grimmerupnorth, Labour Left Forum, LabourHome as well as here about the issue of slates for the forthcoming Labour National Executive Committee (NEC). Questions are being asked, aspertions cast, and denigrations peppered. It is as though political animals with a common agenda shouldn't been seen congregating together. Oh, you are on a slate - political pervert.

If that were the case then political parties wouldn't exist. Of course, at the rate the mainstream ones  are losing members, perhaps they won't in a few years' time.

As a passionate believer in party politics as active citizenship, I have come to recognise that collective organisation is vital to our democracy whether through the place of work as a trade unionist, or as a community activist through my local Labour Party.

As far as the electorate is concerned when it comes to going to the polls, who are they voting for - the candidate, or the party? We know from experience, most people vote for the party i.e. the slate, not the person. You have only got to look at the fate of those parliamentarians and local councillors who have fallen out with their party and stood as independents. Most (with a few notable exceptions) become victims of their own vanity and lose.

What is coming under scrutiny now is the 10-plus year old Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate for the NEC. Initially CLGA was a joint political venture between Labour Reform (now incorporated into five-year old Save the Labour Party (STLP)) and the 35-year old Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD). I welcome this interest. In 2006, CLGA won four of the six places in the Constituency section of the NEC. In 2008 we want to send a clear message on behalf of members by aiming to take all six places.

At issue is how do members in a three-million member/affiliate organisation work together on national governance and policy? It's worthwhile remembering that Labour is not a unitary national organisation. Instead, it is a multi-layered federal organisation, with some 175,000 individual members organised inside 639 parliamentary constituencies in thousands of electoral ward related branches. The branch based on electoral wards, not the British Parliamentary constituency, is the interface between each individual member and the party structure. It is a very fragile link for most members requiring dedicated volunteers (usually) to maintain local contact. It needs to be rediscovered by the Party leadership and nurtured. It is the route to reconnecting Labour in local communities to the public realm. Each one of those members has six votes for candidates in the Constituency section of the NEC. Deadline for nominations 1 April 2008. Ballot papers due in the post 5 June. Close of poll expected 4 July 2008.   

In the run up to Labour's election victory in 1997, CLGA was formed by members to give organised voice to concerns that the New Labour project (while initially offering electoral success) would stifle party democracy. Leading lights in the New Labour project under Blair got very close to succeeding.

The only people in the Party who have kept that mass-membership idea alive since the mid-1990s and carry that beacon today are members of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance, including latterly, Save the Labour Party, and let's not forget - the Labour Representation Committee. But sadly, to my mind and that of many others, not Compass. It is not for the want of trying on the part of CLGA.

Consider it work in progress.

As Curlew succinctly puts it on Labour Left Forum: "Cheers Dunc, think I've got it - voting for the slate means no wasted votes."

Comments

[Miller 2.0]

I'd love to see compass get involved, but I reckon that would have to be subject to an overhaul of the CLGA.

[Peter Kenyon]

Dear Miller 2.0

Me too. And yes. We want members to have a voice!

[youngLeft]

Miller 2.0 how do you think we can Compass activists more engaged in the process of taking back the party? I read your blog and know that you would not approve of the undemocratic selection of candidates this year?

I understand why you want a slate but better to allow people to bubble up at the local level rather than insist on your own 6 and leave plenty of activists frozen out of the loop.

[Peter Kenyon]

Dear Young Left

You pose a very interesting question about Compass, and its role in the process of getting members elected to Labour Party internal bodies.

I can talk best about Save the Labour Party - the only ginger group dedicated exclusively to the Labour Party's structures and process, what you describe as 'taking back the party'. Any member of the Labour Party can join, just as they can join anyone of the organisations that are members of the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (which Compass is not). All members of Save the Labour Party are invited to nominate themselves for election either to its own committee EVERY year, or for positions on the CLGA slates for Labour Party elected positions each time there is an opportunity.

No one can claim that STLP is elitist or seeking to freeze anyone out of its activities.

Indeed there is currently a vacancy on its national committee for a young member of the Labour Party - under-25.

Everyone who is involved has 'bubbled up' at a local level and when last surveyed more than 50% of our membership was active at a local level as either a branch or CLP officer.

So if you are active in Compass Youth why not press for it to explore joining the CLGA?

[El Tom]

Well, looking at time pressures, I'm pretty sure nothing like that could happen in time for this lot of elections, but I shall definitely be pressurising for some sort of negotiation process to open.