Peter Kenyon

A litmus test for political scoundrels

If a politician in Britain doesn't do membership or structures, what are we to think?

If have just been asked to pen about 100 words on changing the way we do politics. This was my response:

Doing politics

Political parties are the mainstay of our representative democracy. Without their structures and members, no politician in Britain can reasonably hope to get selected as a candidate for public office and get elected (except in very exceptional circumstances). Save the Labour Party members do not expect that to change. Any politician that stands on a public platform complaining about rigid structures and membership is simply seeking to avoid accountability.

The challenge is cross-party – the rehabilitation of the political party for the 21^st century. Labour as a democratic socialist party should be leading the way.

 Peter Kenyon - Chair, Save the Labour Party www.savethelabourparty.org

What do you think?

US Presidential election - innocents abroad

Within 12 hours of Democratic nominee-presumptive declaring himself the winner in his party's 2008 Presidential primaries, Barack Obama gave a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). It was business as usual. For all the fanfare about 'change', the US Presidential election hangs on money and spin. Scanning this week's political weeklies, David Lammy writing in the New Statesman claims:

The reality is that a new way of doing politics is emerging. I draw three big lessons....First, 2008 has seen a decisive rejection of the "political class"...Second, both nominees refuse to be bound by artificial ideas...Third, we are seeing new ways of creating a political movement....Obama's campaign has at once lowered the barriers to entry into politics and consistently raised the expectations of what can be achieved when people are willing to take part. A far cry from our political parties' reliance on membership and rigid structures.

Oh, please.

Mainstream US political parties are run by the political class for the political class. If Obama starts to rebuild the Democratic Party as a, erm...cough, cough...democratic party in which members or supporters have a say, then Mr Lammy's claim might begin to have some substance. As a member of the political class that has raised the barriers to entry into politics in the UK by denying members a say, Mr Lammy has some explaining to do first.

Save the Labour Party, mock not!

For the last five years doubts have been expressed about the name of a small organisation founded five years ago within the Labour Party focussed on its internal structures and processes - Save the Labour Party.

This morning's Guardian carries a compelling story which suggests to me our little organisation is well named and a rescue plan to save the Labour Party is now urgently needed.

This account is entirely consistent with my own understanding of the liabilities of NEC members, and the reasons why David Pitt-Watson turned down the post. The key word in the following quote is "independent".

Though he was Brown's candidate for the post, he declined the offer after receiving independent legal advice that he would be personally liable for repaying the loans and could be bankrupted if Labour's finances collapsed.

What this suggests is that the Labour Party's NEC failed to secure its own advice about liabilities arising from the reckless fundraising activities carried out while Tony Blair was leader of the Labour Party and a member of the NEC. Furthermore, NEC officers appear to have had their heads in the sand when Pitt-Watson first sought assurances about these matters, and obliged him to get his own advice.

In addition to all the other problems on his desk at the moment, this is one that Gordon Brown is going to have to apply himself to pdq as the underlying problems are not going to go away by scurrying to appoint a new General Secretary.

If Labour Party members can't have confidence in the NEC to manage the Party's affairs, why should the electorate have confidence in its Leader? They can't say they weren't warned. But then we are just rank-and-file.

PLP morale low: Self-indulgence in the extreme

Bless! Fourth estate mischief maker par excellence Benedict Brogan is reporting PLP's morale crisis. What were the number of nominations for Gordon Brown in last year's Labour Party leadership election coronation?

Leading Labour First activist backs Party rebuild

Leading Labour First activist, Luke Akehurst has a list of suggestions for our Leader following publication of the latest YouGov poll putting the Labour Party more points than I care to mention behind the Tories.

It is good to be able to say I agree with the main thrust of these remarks. But what stands out is this:

Re-build the Party starting at the grassroots. We can't hope to sell a 4th Labour term to the public if we don't have members and activists out their selling it.

He should join Save the Labour Party.  We need the broadest possible consensus about what incentives to offer members to 'sell' a 4th Labour term. Members having a say, for starters?

Mobilising Labour Party members - not too late

While the Westminster village is in a febrile state, there are elections out here on the doorstep in London, Wales and many parts of England. As a Labour Party branch officer, the ongoing challenge is to mobilise when members feel cut out of the loop. Networks of contacts help if only with commiseration. Today has been no exception. But one story keeps popping up. Village gossip repeatedly casts the new General Secretary, David Pitt-Watson in the role of fund-raiser in chief, with the Prime Minister's Political Secretary, Fiona Gordon, as de facto party chief. If that's the impression, our leader Gordon Brown wants us to have, the minnions are doing a good job letting everyone know. Can that really be how he thinks he's going to get Labour re-elected with a working majority at the next General Election? Mike Ion thinks its all about policy. That begs the question of who makes it. The Labour Commission concluded that members had to have a say.

With Parliament in recess for a couple of weeks, will the voices of reason be able to develop a narrative that links the idea of an active, solvent mass membership Labour Party to governing in the interests of the majority of the electorate? Mobilising members is the way to getting out the vote. Think about it. Gordon. You have all these PR/media savvy-people around you in No 10 now, what do they say? Or are we going to have to lose London and more council seats before realisation dawns? Alternatively, you could talk to the CLP or Labour Party branch coordinator at every campaign speaking opportunity over the the next four weeks and ask them.

Mobilising members is the key to rebuilding the Party's finances as well as winning the next General Elections. A motivated membership will be willing to contribute more money. But, Gordon, you have really, really got to want more members. Enthusing members in this campaign is the first step. Next come the Labour Party Partnership in Power Policy debates in May/June. Every CLP can put is as many policy amendments as it likes. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's focus on mobilising members. It is not too late.

Labour navel gazing - not the time? Oh, yes it is!

On the eve of the launch of the London Mayoral campaign this might not be seen by the powers that be as the most appropriate time for a spot of navel gazing. Having blogged vigorously for a general secretary majoring in financial planning skills and an eye on rebuilding membership, there is no better moment than now to highlight the harsh realities. After all if it took ten years from 1987 to 1997 to put on between 125,000 and 150,000 members; how long is it going to take just to put on the 200,000 plus we have lost since regaining power?

Furthermore, in defence of forward planning, I cite the following all reported in the last 2 days:

• a YouGov poll highlighting a post-Budget slip in support
• another YouGov poll suggesting Boris has a 12-point lead in London
• a slump in membership in Scotland
• local party issues in:
  • Coventry North East
  • Easington

A ten-year rebuilding programme is needed starting at branch level - with a quality assured service to encourage membership, fundraising and active local engagement. The issue that has flared in Easington - whole CLP suspended for failing to deliver centrally imposed quotas for women candidates for forthcoming council elections - is probably symptomatic of a lack of support from the centre and the North regional office to encourage women to join the party. Candidates are being selected all over the country from diminishing ranks of members. Is this really the time to be berating each other for failure to achieve local gender quotas for elected office, when we know we will probably have less women MPs in Westminster after the next General Election than in 1997? Coventry North East is a case of sitting councillor reportedly being deselected by the LGC for defying the whip, against the wishes of the local branch party. I am researching the story, but I have seen these LGC strong arm tactics elsewhere resulting in active branch members sitting on their hands, tearing up their party cards or joining an opposition party. (When Hilary Armstrong MP as chief whip circulated the rebellious voting record of Diane Abbott MP for Hackney North during her last 're-selection', we complained that Diane had not voted against the government often enough.)

This is no way to run a mainstream political party aspiring to mass membership. Inclusivity, encouragement, tolerance, open debate and decision-making are essential if real discipline is to be achieved, while at the same time recruiting and retaining more members.

This leads on the timeliness, detail and relevance of management information available to the Party's National Executive Committee. In particular, membership and financial information is essential if NEC members are to play an appropriate role guiding their Party officers, and staff. I was told at Spring Conference that membership has stabilised. I don't believe it. I fear it is back on a downward track as it has been for the last 11 years. That's me speaking as a CLP membership secretary. In my own branch I have received notice of two resignations, the first for a year - both over policy differences with the new leadership failing to return to Labour values.

No apologies for banging on about governance, or navel gazing. If the Leadership was better in tune with the members we wouldn't be facing that dismal dip in the polls, which however inaccurate does little to help lift morale. A membership/supporter focussed communique following the next NEC meeting might help.

Careless talk costs Labour votes and members

As our new General Secretary prepares to take up his post, one of the trickiest issues will be how to encourage elected representatives to weigh their words more carefully so as not to damage efforts to rebuild Labour's electoral standing and membership base.

After months of banter on Facebook, I got a message at 6.43 this morning from a local Labour Party branch member poised to renew membership having been lapsed, telling me:

Have just woken up to hear that my children will have to pledge allegiance to the crown. On top of having to carry an ID card. I can't rejoin.

She was not alone in being outraged as evidenced on Political Futures, or in the august columns of the Guardian.

Politically, Hutton's is the most extreme of a series of recent demarches by the retro Blairites - Flint, Purnell, Straw, McFadden - outdoing each other in promoting counterintuitive, counter-Labour policies by being toughest on the weakest. But in the how-Tory-can-you-be stakes, Hutton has hit the jackpot. As they seize the nasty party mantle, this is a challenge to Brown's authority. The decent faction in the cabinet - Cooper, Harman, Johnson, Alexander and the Milibands - may wonder: where is the clunking fist to restrain these increasingly out of order boot boys? This is a gathering heart-and-soul storm.

Gordon Brown should be under illusions if he wants to be re-elected and rebuild the Labour Party, he has got to deal with careless talk.

OK Ed, new member challenge accepted. But how?

Plenty of opportunity for reflection on set piece speeches following last weekend's Labour Party Spring Conference. I accept Ed Miliband's challenge:

And I urge everyone in this party to seize the progressive opportunity. Campaigning in the local elections in May Going out and recruiting new members to our party. And together creating the ideas and policies for a manifesto not just to win, but to be proud of and build the kind of country we want to see.

But let's get real. I have just processed the latest membership changes for my CLP - flatlining. I have listened to most government announcements this week. I am sure I'm not alone in wondering how on earth to recruit new members when the main thrust is macho posturing to the bewilderment of the vast majority of the electorate. Today's debate on International Women's Day on the floor of the House of Commons merely adds poignancy.

Ed Miliband urges recruit new members

Defining moments don't come often, but Ed Miliband's closing talk to the Labour Spring Conference could prove to be one. My former colleague on Hackney Council and fellow blogger Luke Akehurst posted about it yesterday as 'the speech of the Conference'. I walked into the hall after he had started. There was Ed centre stage thanking us, reminding us and urging us on. No lectern, no scrolling speech screens, no note cards. As Luke wrote it was "stunningly impressive". I found myself looking up and around - was there some new gizmo hanging from the ceiling to enable him to read from? He rounded off with music to my ears as chair of Save the Labour Party with the words:

And I urge everyone in this party to seize the progressive opportunity. Campaigning in the local elections in May Going out and recruiting new members to our party. And together creating the ideas and policies for a manifesto not just to win, but to be proud of and build the kind of country we want to see.

Looking to the next generation of leaders, I wondered do we need to look any further?