Peter Kenyon

Sweetness and light: fat chance

Labour's right-wing declared war on newly-elected Leader Jeremy Corbyn immediately after the official result was declared a year ago. It started with a warning from Lord Mandelson reported in the Guardian on 25 September 2015 by Nicholas Watt: ‘The former minister and adviser to Tony Blair offers his view in a private paper that circulated to political associates last week in which he urges them to dig in for the “long haul”. In his paper, Lord Mandelson writes: “We cannot be elected with Corbyn as leader. Nobody will replace him, though, until he demonstrates to the party his unelectability at the polls. In this sense, the public will decide Labour’s future and it would be wrong to try and force this issue from within before the public have moved to a clear verdict.” ‘

Even assuming Corbyn survives the last minute media barrage to unsettle Labour's internal electorate and secures a second Leadership election victory, his opponents will not accept the decision of party members in 2016, anymore than they did in 2015. They are not democratic socialists. The question for the rest of the party is how can electability be restored with battalions of snipers at large? Team Corbyn has not covered itself in glory in its first year. The management of relations with the Parliamentary Labour Party, the Party General Secretary, party staff, policymaking and the media all pose questions. As matters stand there are no means available to the Party to hold its elected representatives to account for damaging the reputation of the Labour Party or trashing the brand. That is what has been going on now relentlessly for a year by those on the right belittling Corbyn's achievements, ridiculing his standing and asserting that he is unelectable. If they succeed, the battle-lines will simply be redrawn and the conflict will continue from the left.

There have been calls by reasonable voices from both sides of the leadership contest for the result to be accepted and the PLP to get back to the business of opposing the Tories. The first test of that resolve will be during the pre-Conference season Parliamentary session. Will the Labour front-bench have a full complement of spokepersons to take on the Tories? Will the Labour benches be full to cheer on Corbyn at the Despatch Box for Prime Minister's Questions? These are questions that every Constituency Labour Party with a sitting Labour MP could be putting directly to their elected representative now. This shouldn't have to be done. But how else can those who choose to ignore a democratic vote of eligible members, registered affiliates and supporters begin to be held to account? MPs who fail to support the Party's elected leader are on strike. In any other working situation, they would get their pay docked. But no. They claim they are not accountable to Labour Party members. They say they are accountable to the electorate. Wrong. With one or two exceptions (if that) there is not a single Labour MP who could resign from the party and seat, trigger a by-election, and secure re-election under another label. Legal regulation of political parties by the Electoral Commission under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 means politicians cannot play fast and loose with imitation party names that could mislead the electorate. Think of it as an anti-splitters charter. Events over the past 12 months have revived the issue of parliamentary candidate selection and brought re-selection into sharp focus. Threats of de-selection are a very blunt weapon, a bit like waving one of those over-sized foam rubber hands about in a crowd. What is more worrying is that there are so many people obsessing about the electability of the Labour Party when Gordon Brown failed in 2010 and Ed Miliband failed in 2015. Now the Tories are hell-bent on rigging parliamentary boundaries in the wake of legislation passed with the help of the Liberal Democrats in the last Parliament. At the time of writing the Boundary Commission has just published its timetable for what in effect is the opening of another battlefront for internal squabbling in the Labour Party. Mainstream media (MSM) speculation is that up to 200 Labour seats will be affected – we only have 231 MPs. So a period of sober reflection would be helpful on that matter.

From a democratic socialist standpoint, the accountability of elected representatives is an unresolved matter. The original Chartists thought annual elections were the way forward. One of the oldest institutions in the UK with local authority responsibilities that kept to that pattern until 2004 was the City of London. But most members of the establishment generally scoff whenever that Chartist demand of the 19th century is resurrected. The Labour Party has very tight disciplinary requirements of its elected representatives in local government. In the light of PLP behaviours over the past 12 months, there is now a strong case for the party's National Executive Committee (NEC) to address disciplinary requirements for members of the PLP both in the House of Commons and the Lords. The chances of that being progressed before or at the 2016 Labour Conference are small. Not least because the NEC is finely balanced in its allegiances. New members (including the two extra pro-Corbyn supporters in the constituency section) do not take their seats until the last full day of Conference. So they can play no part in decisions either before or during Conference itself. Though there may be a case for a motion to be tabled and debated at Conference about members' expectations of the PLP in future.

Going back to the mistakes made by Team Corbyn in the past 12 months, the following issues loom large:

• messages

• media management

• PLP relations

• conduct of Shadow Cabinet business

It is clear, at least to this correspondent, that Corbyn’s 'business as usual' is not on option. Winning back the readiness of the bulk of the 172 Labour MPs, who expressed 'no confidence' in his leadership, to support the frontbench will require changes in methods of working. Corbyn has got to get out of the bunker and into the tea-rooms. Shadow Cabinets will have to be conducted collegiately. Policy will have to be discussed and debated much more readily. Part of Blair's legacy was accumulating too much power in the Leader's office at the expense of the General Secretary, NEC and the wider membership – trade unions, socialist societies and individuals. Part of an adult debate in the wake of the last 12 months ought to be how to rebalance that power in the interests of the Party as a whole. A starting point could be the reintroduction of Shadow Cabinet elections detested by Blair, but not formally abandoned until 2010 with the election in Opposition of Miliband as leader. Treated as a test in loyalty to the Party leader and effectiveness at the Despatch Box, they could help Corbyn confound his naysayers. A condition of standing could be a signed undertaking to support the Party Leader, and breaches could carry the risk of exclusion from selections to stand at the next general election.

Reintroducing members back into the policy-making process is long overdue. In recent weeks there have been explicit references to democracy in Corbyn's speeches in the wake of 'exclusions' from voting by administrative means. What has been missing are effective on-line tools to enable large numbers of people to take part. Outgoing National Policy Forum (NPF) chair Angela Eagle MP commissioned a website facility called 'Your Britain' which didn't attract many users, cost a lot of money and was virtually impossible to find. That is due to be replaced by a new front-end with a recognisable web address URL policy.labour.org.uk (or something similar). This is part of a very modest set of ideas to drag the Labour Party online in the 21st century. The ideological significance of a 'digital' membership card, or an application for smartphones and other handheld computing devises to go out talking to potential voters cannot understated. This is about empowering members. There is significant resistance from among Labour Party senior management and regional staff to these projects, I'm told. Democratic socialists have no difficulties recognising the significance of members to the electability of the Labour Party. We the members are not a sufficient condition, but we are necessary. In addition to the challenges for Corbyn managing relations with the PLP differently, are those mobilising members. Corbyn has been offering some easy to engage with messages all too often drowned out by those members of the PLP with no regard for the Labour brand or the party's future electability. These are derived from Labour values – affordable housing, free education for all, free health and social care at the point of use, secure enployment, living incomes for all. Corbyn's vision has brought hundreds of thousands of people back into the party. He has now got to confound his internal opponents by mobilising that support on the doorstep. It cannot be done with Team Corbyn as currently constituted. There is a need for a committed democratic socialist at the heart of his strategic team who understands all facets of communication, including TV and social media. That requires delegation and trust. His social media team have to be liberated from internal bureaucracy in both the Leader's Office and Party HQ. They have to be trusted to use their own initiative. How many families are there in the country who are not affected directly or indirectly by the risk of loss of employment, reduced working hours, loss of secure terms and conditions, illness, unaffordable housing, or disappearing public services? Most people who voted in 2015 did not make the connection between those risks to themselves and their families, and the Tories. That has to change too. The MSM will not do that job for Labour.

That is why the messages have to be clear and direct. That is why the PLP has to remember you have to be an adult to stand for Parliament. The time for behaving like spoilt children is over. Conference 2016 is the time to put an end this very unhappy episode and restore hope to Labour voters – past, present and future.

 

Can Labour's civil war be settled any time soon?

Whoever wins Labour's 2016 leadership election, there is no immediate prospect of its civil war being settled anytime soon. Hostilities were opened almost immediately after Jeremy Corbyn was declared winner nearly a year ago. Intermittent skirmishing occurred. An 8-month phoney peace was shattered in the wake of the EU referendum with the collapse of the broad-church shadow cabinet and that overwhelming vote of no confidence by the PLP in Corbyn. Sources close to Corbyn insist there was a plot orchestrated by Deputy Leader Tom Watson. Whatever, Watson will still be deputy leader after the result is declared on or around 24 September.

Worthy pleas are being made for everyone to accept the result whoever wins. I made mine in this blog three weeks ago with Operation Sweetness and Light. My blog concluded:

The only way Labour's electability can be restored is through unity and comradeship. To achieve that the planning has to start now throughout the Party.

Paul Mason chronicling the Blairite silence five days ago was decidedly more caustic concluding in effect that there are some who will never be reconciled to a second Corbyn win and would quit!. He suggested:

The price for Corbyn should be — again, now not later — to offer them specific posts in a unity shadow cabinet, clear input into the leader’s office and the HQ, and a Labour policy agenda that compromises between what Corbyn’s supporters want, and what Smith’s want. The result would be to negate Blairism and speed its exit from the party.

Maybe, but unlikely.

Former Labour Party National Executive Committee (NEC) Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate member, Mark Seddon, writing in the Guardian yesterday wishfully concluded:

Let’s hope that the parliamentary Labour party calms down, sees sense, and gets behind whoever is elected in September.

Sorry Mark, I just can't see that happening either.

What's tragic is that those opposed to Corbyn just don't seem to realise what led to his victory last year, or triggered a flood of membership applications in the immediate wake of the EU referendum result. As Ellie Mae O'Hagan reminded Guardian readers two weeks ago:

There are simply not enough delusional Leninists in Britain to make up the entirety of Corbyn’s support – these are ordinary British voters who want radical solutions to a growing number of crises. And until they are listened to and taken seriously, Corbyn and the movement keeping him in power is not going anywhere.

So what if anything can be done to encourage calm and campaigning to win a General Election with Corbyn (assuming he wins the leadership again)?

Changing rules in the Labour Party is like pulling proverbial teeth, unless there is a majority on the NEC so inclined, in which case it can be done almost at will, as that recent High Court case lost on Appeal proved. What has emerged is that the Labour 'brand' is wide-open to abuse, damage and ridicule by members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). It started arguably with a private warning last Autumn from m'lord Mandelson revealed in the Guardian on 25 September 2015 by Nicholas Watt:

The former minister and adviser to Tony Blair offers his view in a private paper that circulated to political associates last week in which he urges them to dig in for the “long haul”.

In his paper, Lord Mandelson writes: “In choosing Corbyn instead of Ed Miliband, the general public now feel we are just putting two fingers up to them, exchanging one loser for an even worse one. We cannot be elected with Corbyn as leader.

“Nobody will replace him, though, until he demonstrates to the party his unelectability at the polls. In this sense, the public will decide Labour’s future and it would be wrong to try and force this issue from within before the public have moved to a clear verdict.”

So the civil war was scripted. More importantly, with no sign (at the time of writing) of Conference Papers for either delegates or party units is what, if any, ideas the Party's NEC have for tackling ill-discipline in the PLP. Could party units be mobilised to table contemporary resolutions to address this and related matters to encourage a rebuilding of party unity? Previous experience says no. While Party meetings have been banned, the NEC has accepted such gatherings can take place to prepare for conference. Thus there is a window of opportunity. However, the composition of the NEC remains unchanged until after Conference, so the election of six CLGA members to the Constituency section of the NEC will not shift the balance of power in time (even if might afterwards).

Careful political positioning by Corbyn in the pre-Conference parliamentary session starting on Monday 5 September could set the scene for rebuilding a broad-church Shadow Cabinet. I personally favour a reinstitution of Shadow Cabinet elections as in the Rule Book before Blair, which could have been revived by Ed Miliband in 2010. That would enable Corbyn to say to the PLP you elect the people whom I have to work with and I will change how the Leader's Office functions to make sure we work together to defeat the Tories. It would challenge the 'refuseniks' to put up or shut up. 

In policy terms, the Tories are wide open to ridicule over Brexit, and the state of the economy and those should be the issues that Conference debates to ensure clear policy lines with which to drive wedges between the Remainers and the Leavers in the Conservative Party.

As we learned during the most nerve-wracking day in the on-going civil war - a couple of hours is a long-time in politics. Corbyn delivering headline catching lines to confound Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May in Prime Minister's Questions in early September would be an essential tonic to both the PLP and rank-and-file members ahead of Conference. It will not silence Corbyn's most vociferous critics, but it could help isolate the naysayers.

 

 

 

 

Labour leadership - time for the stalking horse to be stabled

I think the unthinkable – a re-united Labour Party by the beginning of next month

Am I alone in thinking nothing good can come from the Labour Party leadership election continuing another day. What we have learned is multifarious. For me the most shocking realisation is that Labour's elected and unelected representatives can trash the Labour 'brand' with impunity. Rank and file members do not enjoy such liberties. That is not right or equitable. For me this was sufficient reason to vote the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) slate for the constituency section of the National Executive Committee slate. And even though there are major issues with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, I will be voting for him again if this wretched election is dragged out to the bitter end. I suspect I will not be alone in that regard!

This deepening fissure between the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and the membership has to be bridged as quickly as possible. Parliament resumes after its summer recess on Monday 5 September. Labour needs to be able to take the Tories by surprise and present a united front that day. A full complement of Shadow Cabinet members needs to be assembled. That can only be achieved by mutual recognition that the rule changes arising from the Collins Report changed the relationship between elected members of the PLP and party members hopefully irrevocably, and for good reasons. Labour MPs, Lords and Baronesses have to adjust to this new political paradigm.

Early last summer a number of Labour MPs lent their support to Jeremy Corbyn to enable him to get on the ballot paper for the Leadership following Ed Miliband's precipitous resignation after Labour's 2015 election defeat. With the benefit of hindsight this act of electoral pluralism highlighted how far divorced those MPs had become from Labour members in the country and the party's closest supporters. I'm not referring to the ones with deep pockets that help finance the party. It's the one's with a longing for Labour values - some of whom have been waiting for 40 years since former Labour Prime Minister Jim Callaghan first pandered with neoliberalism. 

There is a hardcore of Labour MPs who refused to accept the democratic decision of Labour members, registered supporters and affiliates last year. This cancer is eating away at the core aims and purposes of the Labour Party. In business speak trashing the Labour brand has to stop. In the run up to Conference a consensus is needed to marginalise them and, if necessary, change Party rules to enable them to be more readily disciplined. It is shocking that local parties have recently been suspended, and all ordinary political meetings of rank and file members banned while these PLP members have been undermining Labour's electoral prospects unchecked. 

I'm prepared to forgive Corbyn all his faults while this arrogant behaviour on the part of a small minority of Labour parliamentarians goes unchecked. In addition, we have the unedifying revelations of apparent disloyalty to the office of Leader by some elected members of the party's National Executive Committee and paid Labour staff including the current general secretary, Iain McNicol. There is no way these issues can be solved with a succession of purges, however great the appetite for blood in both camps.

Much publicity has been given to accounts by Labour MPs who recently resigned from the Shadow Cabinet alleging Corbyn was impossible to work with, undermined their work and lacked essential leadership qualities. When I first enquired of the circumstances leading up to the ill-fated spate of resignations, I was shocked to discover that Corbyn had taken a leaf out of the Blair playbook and was deciding policy without enabling Shadow Cabinet a say (as reported in an article by Mike Davis and myself in the current issue of Chartist magazine). What I also learned was that this dictatorial way of working had been established very early in Corbyn's term as Leader. “Why didn't you say anything?”, I asked. "Oh, that would have been disloyal", I was told in all seriousness by my source who shall remain nameless. Doh! One of the key lessons the whole Labour Party should have learned from the Blair/Brown era was the political hazards of misplaced personal loyalties.

So for 10 months or thereabouts you and I have been kept in the dark about how parliamentary business was been conducted by Corbyn. Sorry, PLP, you really should have called time on that months ago - not through an expression of 'no confidence', but by being honest with members.

As matters stand members appear to see relentless plotting by a PLP hardcore as a bigger problem than Corbyn's folly losing a no-confidence vote and the bulk of his shadow cabinet over the Brexit vote.

That deserves much more direct consideration now, especially by the stalking horse's campaign team.

Corbyn's political stamina is a phenomenon. Lesser mortals would have long gone. But Corbyn has awakened a thirst and hunger for Labour values in the minds of hundreds of thousands of people who have joined as members, registered supporters and affiliates. For too many of the plotters and Labour staffers we, the members, are an administrative and political nightmare - a bit like small shareholders in quoted companies. But I have a sneaking suspicion that news of the no-confidence motion to be tabled at the PLP by Margaret Hodge and Ann Coffey leaked out was like a starting gun being fired in the minds of yet more people seeing Corbyn as the embodiment of those Labour values most yearn for in a future Labour government.

Parading the stalking horse for a day longer just reinforces that message. Restarting Operation Fear - a party split, unelectable, catastrophe, complete embarrassment - that really isn't going to help Labour win the next general election whenever that might be, is it?

So in my last blog, I launched Operation Sweetness and Light. The High Court ruling on Monday 8 August ordering the party to allow who knows precisely how many more members to vote in the planned Leadership election only reinforces that case. The faster the stable girls and boys grooming the stalking horse get their brains round the damage they are doing to the Labour brand, the faster those of ready to critique Corbyn's leadership (while respecting his democratic mandate) can get on with pressing for the necessary adoption of a collegiate approach to parliamentary business.

 

 

Preparing for D-Day: Operation Sweetness and Light

I adopt the mantle of brand manager and speculate about whether 'Labour' can be saved

The 2016 Labour leadership election result will be announced (presumably in Liverpool) on 24 September – Declaration Day. Whoever wins must be assured of the support of all sections of party. No ifs, no buts. All of which should go without saying. That's how it should have been last year. So what can be learned from the last eleven months?

In the first instance, the new leadership election rules (agreed by Conference while Ed Miliband was in charge) radically altered the balance of power between the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and members, registered supporters and affiliates. Such was and is the disconnect between the PLP and members in Branch (BLPs) and Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs) that when nominations opened in 2015 no one expected a left-wing candidate to get on the ballot paper. But in the interests of political balance enough members of the PLP 'loaned' Corbyn their support to give members a wider choice. As it happened Corbyn triggered an explosion of interest in Labour Party membership and registered support, doubling membership a year ago to just under 400,000. This is unprecedented in the annals of mainstream political parties. He reawakened interest in Labour's founding values, and not unimportantly lifted Party income. To borrow from business speak – Corbyn boosted the Labour brand. And he remains unique in that capacity at the moment.

In the last six weeks the actions of the PLP and the National Executive Committee (NEC) have arguably trashed the brand. Despite that another 300,000 people have signed up as members or registered supporters. Some have even paid an extra £25 to secure a vote in the 2016 leadership election, because the NEC as I set out in my last blog disenfranchised maybe as many as 175,000 people who joined between 12 January (the freeze date) and 14 July (the date when an incentive to join - voting rights in a leadership election - was explicitly removed from the Party's website. A case concerning that mis-selling will be opened in the High Court on Thursday 4 August. If the Court finds against the Labour Party that should increase the number of members entitled to vote, and make those who had joined and paid an extra £25 eligible for a refund.

In the meantime, the leadership election with its hustings and rallies rumbles on. Corbyn to his credit continues to refuse to trade insults. But it is now screamingly obvious that his manner of leadership and the advice he has been getting is woefully inadequate for the task of a prime minister in waiting.

So the choice in the 2016 leadership election for members, registered supporters and affiliates is limited to rewarding alleged 'bad behaviour' on the part of the PLP and voting for Owen Smith, or alleged 'bad behaviour' on the part of the Corbynites and voting for Jeremy Corbyn.

As a member, I see the boost to the Labour Party brand brought by Corbyn as particularly precious – re-engaging people in political dialogue, increasing party funds and adding to activism to counter the mainstream media (MSM). On the otherhand, I see the behaviour of certain members of the PLP as unacceptable in a voluntary association, bring the Labour Party into disrepute and requiring corrective action, however painful. No member of the PLP should have been allowed to refuse to serve in Corbyn's shadow cabinet last year. Complaints about Corbyn's 'disloyalty' under Blair are not relevant to today's circumstances. Policy is made differently. Or is it? I was shocked to discover in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum that Corbyn had taken a page out of the Blairite playbook and was making policy decisions without debate in Shadow Cabinet. Apparently, that had been going on ever since he became leader. 'Corbyn – the last of the Blairites?' – a ridiculous but apparently entirely plausible idea. Interestingly, it is one which leading left-wing journalist Owen Jones doesn't list in his recent blog 'Questions all Jeremy Corbyn supporters need to answer'.

But it goes to the heart of whether the 'Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party' as set out on all our Party membership cards. Corbyn needs to face-up now to what led to the highly damaging vote of no confidence in the PLP. We know it followed his lamentable oversight in the immediate aftermath of the EU referendum. There should have been a collegiate Labour Shadow Cabinet response. There wasn't.

The allegations made against Corbyn that he is unelectable are opinions. As are the claims that his current oppenent is 'more electable'. What is certain is that the recent trashing of the Labour brand by both the PLP and the NEC has seriously damaged Labour's electability. So let's stop fooling ourselves. The question of whether Labour could hope to secure a majority of seats at the next general election was in doubt anyway as a result of events in Scotland and the proposed reduction of seats in the House of Commons. All the PLP and NEC have done is made winning a more distant prospect whoever the Leader.

Corbyn in these circumstances has an opportunity to demonstrate true leadership. He needs to be putting in place steps to unite the party and take on the Tories as part of his current campaign. Re-engaging with party members to shape policy, and declining to make it up on the hoof would be a start. Adopting a more open approach to the MSM, while continuing to harness support and understanding for established policy through social media would help too. Rather than waiting for Conference to announce the shutting down of Your Britain, why not herald the relaunch of policy.labour – highlighting the key policy areas that members' views are needed now to erode public confidence in the Conservatives. Appealing to his supporters to get active in their BLPs and CLPs is important now too. To succeed with potential Labour voters on the doorstep members need new online tools. Time is up for the clumsy, paper-based, time-consuming, method of collecting voter identification data and doorstep intelligence. If a Doorstep Application is in design, let's hear about it now. Instead of allowing complaining about the lack of welcome for new members and supporters, tackle it head-on. Just because the NEC has banned party meetings except in special circumstances, there is no reason why Corbyn shouldn't be calling for informal BLP/CLP gatherings to offer encouragement to newcomers to get active.

Now the really tricky bit, how to finesse the PLP, marginalise the plotters and welcome back the reluctant resigners? Once upon a time, when in opposition, the PLP held Shadow Cabinet elections. A pool of senior Labour MPs from whom the Party leader could choose to fill key posts to take on the opposition. It used to be an annual event – an opportunity for Labour MPs to decide who was doing a good job, and who wasn't. Such as Tony Blair's contempt for collective decision making that he cancelled Shadow Cabinet meeting six months before the 1997 general election, and the rest is history as vividly highlighted in the Chilcott Report into the 2003 Second Iraq War. Ed Miliband when elected Leader in 2010 refused to reinstate Shadow Cabinet elections. As did Corbyn when elected last year. It was a missed political opportunity to test the true loyalties of the Blairites. Ditto the way in which Corbyn has run Shadow Cabinet meetings ever since he was elected. Trust, albeit fragile, between Corbyn and a majority of the PLP has to be restored pdq.

Corbyn in the words of one of his closets confidants had 'a lucky escape getting in the ballot'. But unless he learns from his mistakes 'it is over', I was told. Key people in this suggested Operation: Sweetness and Light are Deputy Leader Tom Watson, General Secretary Iain McNicol and PLP chair, John Cryer. Like Corbyn they are all tainted by recent events. Each has a responsibility to help shape that unity that is essential from the moment the Leadership election result is declared (or the challenger Owen Smith MP admits he is not the answer and withdraws).

The only way Labour's electability can be restored is through unity and comradeship. To achieve that the planning has to start now throughout the Party.