Peter Kenyon

Labour NEC meets in two weeks - what should be on the agenda?

In the interests of openness and accountability, I would like to hear from any Labour Party member, or supporter: what steps you would like to see the Party's National Executive Committee take to improve Labour's chances of a bigger win in next year's General and local council elections?

Avid readers and own goals

At a recent meeting, which I am not at liberty to speak about, someone who shall remain nameless claimed to be an avid reader of this blog. I am not easily flattered or deceived. But avid readers will have noticed that I failed to report on the May NEC meeting. Apologies, I hope to remedy that omission, with an explanation later. But in the meantime, I was struck with the editorial in the latest issue of Tribune. I'm reluctant to take Tribune's editor to task. But would the Norwich North by-election have been in vain if the apparent unfairness of the deselection of Ian Gibson were addressed directly by the NEC? My CLGA colleague on the NEC Ann Black in her report of the July NEC meeting writes: "I still do not know why Ian Gibson was referred [to the NEC Endorsements Panel]". If that isn't grounds for an emergency NEC to decide whether there is a case for review of Ian Gibson's deselection and how to conduct it, I don't know what is. Ann is a member of the NEC Endorsement Panel!

A contrite NEC, righting wrongs it may have committed, would be an excellent starting point for a credible Labour Party relaunch in the run up to Party Conference.

There is however a practical problem. The NEC is currently not scheduled to meet again until 22 September.

Labour NEC agenda: missing items - membership

In addition to the scandal of not providing regular management accounts to all Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) members is the small matter of no membership reports either. I was reminded of this yesterday reading reports of Labour benefactor and former minister Lord Sainsbury's new venture, the Institute of Government.

Sainsbury interviewed by the Times newspaper recalls the daily monitoring of trading figures in retailing:

“In the family supermarket business, every morning you had the previous day’s trade figures, how well you were doing compared with the previous week and the same week last year. Everyone knew exactly what they had to deliver."

There is no reason why the NEC should not have regular membership figures, except that the powers that be do not think membership is critical to the Labour Party's core business. This may help explain why Labour is now languishing at pitifully low levels in the opinion polls after a battering in the Euro/council elections in June. Membership recruitment and retention, together with ensuring members have a say in policy are essential to any Labour electoral recovery plan. That's what I shall be proposing when the NEC next meets on Tuesday 21 July.

Pleural plaques: Another Labour Party own goal?

Adequate compensation for plural plaques sufferers being sought by campaigners is reportedly at risk. This report blames Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown. I wonder if m'Lord Mandelson has had a quite word. Whatever, the upshot (if true) is another let down in the making for Labour's core vote, at least in England and Wales. That should liven up next week's National Executive Committee meeting on the day the Westminster (increasingly English as far as domestic policy is concerned) Parliament goes into recess.

Labour's NEC - a broken reed?

Today, the Guardian published a letter I wrote last week in response to a Comment piece on the Labour Party by Simon Jenkins in which among other things Jenkins described its National Executive Committee as 'a broken reed'. 

I challenged his analysis, writing:

The Labour party's shortcomings are governance failures. Just like those that took Britain to war in Iraq, and led to the near collapse of the banking system and the MPs' allowances scandal. The result has been alien policies, membership and local council representation cut by over 50%, and massive debts.

Save the Labour Party's call for an extra NEC meeting has been rejected by the powers that the on the grounds that it was not possible to arrange. That's a problem with a body that only meets every two months and is never given any meaningful management information either about its finances, membership or organisational capacity. What's the point?

I'm still waiting for confirmation that the Statement of Accounts for 2008 has been sent to the Electoral Commission, and that it will also be sent to members this month for consideration at July meetings. I hope that our Auditors have given an unqualified opinion as to the state of the Party's finances. But it can only be a hope, as I have never seen any information as a member of the NEC that would assure me that they will. With affiliated trade unions, the Party's financial mainstay, threatening to reduce funding or in extreme cases, such as the Communications Workers' Union, disaffiliate, there must be questions about going-concern. Yesterday's announcement by m'Lord Mandleson cancelling the part-privatisation of the Post Office at least removes one potential threat to the Labour Party's finances, for the time being. In any normal organisation, the NEC would have had an opportunity to consider the draft accounts with the Auditor present. My request for such a meeting before 30 June has been ignored.

Underlying these concerns, which I will readily admit are a minority interest, are worries that 'the powers that be' in the Labour Party think they are law unto themselves, just like Members of Parliament, and bankers. It is time this view was challenged more loudly, and very publicly, if 'the powers that be' hope to win back the trust of party members and the electorate.

More prefer Labour government to Tory: Conservativehome

Buried at the bottom of this posting on Conservativehome is the following statement:

The only serious caution for David Cameron comes with a question that forces voters to choose between Labour or the Conservatives: "44 per cent would still prefer a Labour government and 42 per cent a Conservative one. This is despite 72 per cent dissatisfaction with Labour."

Everything still to work for, which is why Save the Labour Party is calling for an emergency Labour Party NEC.

Inertia v. activists – Labour’s NEC put to test

I was elected to the Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) in a ballot last year. Arch loyalist and grand dame of Labour First, Maggie Cosin, when she heard I was standing, asked me why I wanted to waste my time.  I wouldn't quarrel with her assessment of the NEC. What excites me is its potential. Never has there been a greater opportunity for constituency and trade union NEC representatives to exercise influence.

In my capacity as chair, Save the Labour Party, I wrote to the Prime Minister Gordon Brown ahead of the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on Monday suggesting that he should be supporting an extra meeting of the NEC to review the recent election results, strategy and organisation.  That's long-hand for General Election - how can we win?

You can help secure that meeting. Get your branch and CLP to back the call. My own branch discussed my letter to the PM and came up with the following resolution:

"City of London Labour Party calls on the chair of the NEC to convene an extra NEC meeting before the end of June to review the results of the European, English county council and new unitary authority elections, party strategy and organisation; so that:

1. all party members are fully involved in current and future policy making

2. the next manifesto fully reflects Labour values

which are both essential if the Party is to mobilise all members and supporters in the forthcoming General Election campaign."

It was composed following debate, rather than being tabled to force an outcome - so it's a consensual resolution. Now the question is whether other party units and activists agree that the NEC should meet sooner, rather than later. Alternatively, the Prime Minister could be left to govern the country. leaving the question of whether that is sufficient to win the next election to the electorate.

An open letter to Gordon Brown

Save the Labour Party (STLP)  has sent an open letter to Gordon Brown encouraging him to involve Labour Party members in addressing questions about his Leadership. STLP has already called for an emergency meeting of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee, which is not scheduled to meet until 21 July.

Salient extracts include:

Remaining party members will appreciate the opportunity to have their say. You have a chance to confound your critics by demonstrating in a practical way that you are a democratic socialist, and not just clinging onto power thanks to quirks in our British constitution....

.....As the next step we hope you will agree these matters are ones for the Party as a whole, and not just the PLP. We hope you will support an extra NEC meeting now to review the election results, strategy and organisation and for you to share your agenda and discuss how we can better involve the wider party. In the meantime, you might consider announcing at the PLP tonight your readiness to face a challenge if your opponents can muster the necessary 71 signatures for an alternative candidate, and that you would be happy for CLPs, TUs and socialist societies to submit nominations for you continuing (or others contesting) as Leader and Harriet Harman as Deputy Leader. Provisions for this already exist under Rule 4.2.B.ii.

It either this or a lingering sense that we are being told to accept he is the best man for the job of Prime Minister.

Democratic reform: what about the Labour Party?

British Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown has just announced the formation of a National Council for Democratic Renewal in a further attempt to regain the political initiative following the MPs expenses revelations. Whilst I think that such an idea is worth floating, I worry about the process. Was this discussed inside the Labour Party either by its National Policy Forum or its National Executive Committee, or even within government, by the Cabinet?

Listening to his interview on the Today Programme, the repeated use of the first person singular, I,I,I,I........will not have gone unnoticed by the listener. Personally, I don't see how this initiative can have any credibility with the electorate without a parallel process inside the Labour Party about its own democracy.

Labour Party PPC selections: time for urgent reform?

Two women MPs standing down today as a result of the MPs expenses scandal provides a timely reminder to us activists that it could mean even fewer women MPs in the next Parliament.

Labour has by far and away the best record of the mainstream political parties on seeking to get more women elected to the House of Commons. (Footnote to 50+% of the electorate - which party is on your side?). There have recently been some very difficult to explain decisions on the part of the National Executive Committee's Organisation sub-committee allowing open selections in winnable seats, rather than insisting on all-women shortlists. (The Tory MP Julie Kirkbride's case threw up some questions about childcare and MPs expenses, which shouldn't be lost sight of either.)

But my main concern and that of my colleagues in Save the Labour Party is that of the perception that favoured candidates able to lavish unlimited expenses to win votes can be parachuted into winnable seats by a party machine. This did not prove to be the case in Erith and Thamesmead, but the reputational damage to Labour was done by weeks of media speculation some unfounded about the candidacy of Georgia Gould, in particular.

Should the Party stagger on relying on its present rules faced with the possibility, if GMB general secretary, Paul Kenny's estimate of another 50 MPs standing down? Or is it time for an urgent review? I'd like to hear you views.