Peter Kenyon

I want membership of the Party of European Socialists

On the day the British Parliament starts the ratification process of the European Reform (aka) Lisbon Treaty, I want the Labour Party to enable my membership to include individual membership of the Party of European Socialists (PES)

Can you think of a better way of enabling better understanding of, involvement in and commitment to Britain's membership of the European Union?

I proposed this at the Fabian Conference morning session on Saturday on European Britain. I don't claim authorship of this idea. John Palmer, former European Editor of the Guardian and latterly policy director of the European Policy Centre wrote about it in Chartist nearly two years ago. However, as pressure intensifies inside the British Labour Party to rebuild its membership base, and conventional means of reducing Euro-scepticism appear counter-productive, perhaps it is an idea whose time has come.

In the meantime you can become a PES activist.

European socialist awakening, and hey Italy - wow!

With the European Parliamentary Elections barely 18 months away it's not too early to be thinking about the PES manifesto. Indeed a website has been created here to enable us all to do just that.

While I have managed to lift my eyes from the British agenda, have you read Denis MacShane's piece on the Italian left in the latest issue of Tribune?  Three million, yes, three million Italians have just voted to elect the first leader of a new Party fusing all the non-Conservative parties in the country except the Trots.

Extend membership to European Socialist Party

News late last night that our outgoing leader Tony Blair is being promoted by recently elected French President Nicholas Sarkozy as the first full-time European President poses some ticklish questions of democratic legitimacy.

To start the ball rolling, I'm re-reading a piece published a year ago in Chartist written by former Guardian European editor, John Palmer. Among his proposals to develop the European Demos was the idea of extending individual membership of national political parties to the European level.

If adopted by the Labour Party in the UK, this would mean that in addition to being a member of my local branch party, entitled to vote for delegates to my local Westminster Parliamentary Constituency Party and so on, I could also be an individual member of the European Socialist Party.

Now if that meant I could vote for who was going to represent the European Socialist Party in the forthcoming (not) European Presidential elections, that would be a major democratic break through.

I don't think that was what M. Sarkozy had in mind. But if Gordon Brown wants a big idea...........