Peter Kenyon

Labour Party union power - what goes round, comes round

'News' of trade union policy demands tabled for next weekend's National Policy Forum merely highlights how poorly organised the Labour Party's members are to mobilise opinion around policy. Though that's not all that came to mind. I thought of former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson who, nearly 40 years ago, in 1969 at a meeting in Chequers, told a leading trade unionist: "Get your tanks off my lawn." Local branch and constituency organisation for individual members was as varied then as it is now. Instead of worrying about the unions, the current Leader of the Labour might be better advised focussing on what he set out to do when elected unopposed - expanding and renewing party democracy. Very few members have had any opportunity to have a say in the current policy review. The Joint Policy Commission meeting on Monday could usefully reflect on that fact before binning too many challenges to current Labour Party policy. While affiliated trade unionist get to meet the ministerial chair of the National Policy Forum, Pat McFadden, and manifesto supremo, Ed Miliband, no such invitations will be extended to the leaders of membership pressure groups that are campaiging against Trident, privatisation, 42-day detention and in favour of council housing, higher taxes on the rich or renewable energy. it's classic divide and rule and our party democracy is the poorer for it.

Cash-strapped Labour Party deadline gone for Conference passes

According to the Labour Party website the deadline for applications for Annual Conference passes, except exhibitors, has passed. The deadline was set as 6 June 2008. Even then you had to be a member since at least 8 June 2007.

For an organisation that was prepared to allow new members to vote in its Leader/Deputy election last year within weeks of joining, and changed the dates of this year's Annual Conference to encourage more visitors, I find this baffling, particularly since the Party' finances are in such a fragile state.

Perhaps management will improve with the appointment election coronation of a new General Secretary after the special National Executive Committee meeting on Thursday 12 June.

Expect an extension of the deadline when someone at 39 Victoria Street wakes up. Last year it went to 31 July on the website, possibly even later for 'trusties'.

Labour Party members demand early sight of Accounts/Agenda

Last night delegates at my Constituency Labour Party (CLP) General Committee agreed a proposed national Party Rule Change to give members the right to a provisional Conference Agenda and the Annual Accounts by the end of June. This would allow enough time for due consideration to be given by members at their local meetings to the business of Annual Conference. It's an opportunity for the Labour Party National Executive Committee to rebuild bridges with its dwindling membership. By making itself accountable, the NEC would be showing the electorate that Labour practices what it preaches. It would sit well in the context of the Governance of Britain agenda laid out by our Leader, Gordon Brown shortly after his election unopposed to replace Tony Blair and appointment as Prime Minister by HM the Queen.

In the normal course of events, Rule changes proposed by CLPs or affiliates lie on the table for a year before consideration at an Annual Conference. But we live in unusual times. The Annual Accounts have to be lodged with the Electoral Commission by 30 June each year. So there is no additional administrative burden imposed on Head Office by making them available to members via the Party's Intranet. It just requires the political vision to want to be accountable. If the Conference Arrangements Committee has not got a Provisional Agenda ready by now, it ought to have, surely?

Vote Labour on 1 May, policy review starts 2 May

Today's printed media headlines were really very unhelpful. The Labour Party under former Chancellor of the Exchequer, now Prime Minister Gordon Brown has establised a minimum wage, increased it every year and done more than any other elected politician to put more money into the pockets of low paid working and retired people.

Labour Party people think that's a good reason to vote Labour on 1 May. I agree. In fact anyone not earning silly money has good reasons for voting Labour on 1 May, Well in the light of the headlines, even those earning silly money should be bounding to their local polling station to vote Labour. But they will not. Ungrateful lot. How could that be?

We live in uncertain times. The vast majority of people have no connection with a political party, except through the ballot box.  This alone is not the stuff of a 21st century democracy. But the whole of the country could, if they wanted to send Labour a message on 1 May - whatever the misgivings that's the day to put them aside aka as recognising which side you bread is buttered and voting Labour. Then, hey presto, on 2 May  the Labour Party is opening the door to the next round of policy-making under Partnership in Power But it won't be like that. It will the ballot that most will rely on to convey a message. It could be painful.

On tax, we in the Labour Party have got some very serious work to do to restore a sense of fairness to our policy. At what level of gross income should anyone pay tax? I'd open the bidding at the level of the living wage. And you?

Then we need to be work out how fair taxes can be achieved. I'd open the bidding for a higher rate of tax for those earning silly money and shut down the scope for avoidance. But what's silly money?

Labour - all member ballot for NPF - 2009, 2011, ever?

At 10 am next Saturday morning, I hope to be in Birmingham to hear Gordon Brown set out further his vision for Labour in government at the Party's Spring Conference. My hope, although I'm not holding my breath, is that he will take the opportunity to praise active members - the people on whose support many elected representatives depend.

Wouldn't it be marvellous if he talked up the importance of members in the modern Labour Party having a say? It will involve ensuring transparent policy making (just like the total transparency now sought for MPs allowances and expenses). The final round of key policy proposals for any election to be fought by Labour candidates needs to go to an all-member ballot with clear political choices. That approach would offer the prospect of genuine unity ahead of the next British General Election, and pave the way for winning back voters now.

Political cynics would be stunned. Opposition parties would flounder. Labour Party morale would enjoy a big boost.

As a forward-thinking Leader, he will have done his sums. To give members a say means enabling an OMOV ballot for National Policy Forum representatives at the next available opportunity in 2009. As Leader of the Party he is uniquely placed to enable that to happen. It requires a Rule change to be agreed at the 2008 Annual Conference. Only the NEC has the power to table Rule changes at such short notice.

Brown may not be aware. But there is a growing consensus about this reform among members. last Saturday it was debated at the AGM of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD). A resolution proposing that all national constituency representatives to the Party's National Policy Forum should be elected by a One-Member-One-Vote ballot was passed unanimously.

STLP has been actively campaigning about this for nearly five years. It is one of the recommendations of the LabOUR Commission, chaired by Angela Eagle MP, now a Treasury minister, that published its interim report last May.

We had hoped that early discussions with the NEC would have led to a consultation in time for Rule changes to be proposed to the 2008 Annual Conference in Manchester next September. Then the next round of NPF elections in 2009 could have conducted in accordance with members' wishes, which I and others hope would mean ALL members. That path was blocked by Mike Griffiths, now a candidate for the post of General Secretary, who to the best of my knowledge as Clerk to the Commission never even replied to Angela's letter setting out the scope for further evidenced based work to enable members to have a say. If Brown and the NEC, of which he is a very important member, continue to sit on their hands members, will have to wait until 2011 at the earliest to have say.

Having inherited a £20 million debt mountain from his predecessors, Brown needs to lead a renaissance of Labour as a mass-membership party representing the many not the few to consolidate his position as Leader and PM. Rebuilding the party will take a generation or more to achieve. But with key electoral tests in London, and English and Welsh local government on 1 May, what better opportunity to start the process than Spring in the centre of England?

In Labour politics - anything goes

It's official:

To ensure delegates are able to fully debate the big policy challenges facing Britain in depth, today and in the future, the National Executive Committee has agreed that the timetable for conference be extended. Conference will now start on Saturday, 20 September and conclude on Wednesday, 24 September.

This is the news on the Labour Party website today replacing the information circulated to all CLPs (at great expense) last month that Labour's Annual Conference 2008 will start on Sunday, 21 September and conclude on Thursday 25 September.

Let's unpack this.

To ensure delegates are able to fully debate......

that will mean the reintroduction of resolution based policy making? Oh, no that was abolished in 1997. Personally, I was in favour of that. But debate by definition means putting opposing sides, and invariably - voting - a practice that is virtually extinct in the Labour Party.

the National Executive Committee has agreed that the timetable for conference be extended

that will mean Conference will be for a whole working week? Oh, no that was abandoned a long time ago. First, the Friday session went, then the Thursday afternoon session. Under the new 'extended' Conference, Thursday morning has gone too. It is replaced by Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, well, at least officially. So compared to last year, it has been extended, but is still shorter than it once was.

Finally there is the question of the start date itself discussed on this blog two weeks ago. For any delegate seriously interested in 'fully debating' to coin a phrase, there is the indelicate question of the Conference Arrangements Commmittee, which if past precedent can be relied on, will now be meeting on Friday 19 September.

It's a pity Labour Party activities are not covered by Misleading advertising, Distance selling or Unfair commercial practices codes, legislation or directives.

But, hey In politics, Anything Goes, or does it?