Peter Kenyon

Smashing the Labour Party machine: a Labour Leader's 1st= priority

As the Labour Leadership, Treasurer and NEC election ballot papers drop, it's time to look inwards and ask is the Labour Party's internal organisation fit for purpose?

Since the contest started to replace Gordon Brown millions of words have been uttered, written and recorded about the direction of travel, New Labour versus old Labour, drawing lines under the past and moving on. Today we have been treated to vivid reminders in the Blair memoirs about why Leadership elections between the real contenders are healthy for our party democracy as well as the electorate. But little has been said or discussed about the Labour Party's internal organisation(s) which the new Leader will inherit.

Worse, we have had an ongoing conspiracy of silence about the absence of a Deputy Leadership election. Nor should we forget that if the Shadow Cabinet had had its way, the Leadership contest would have been done and dusted before the Parliamentary summer recess in a machine effort to shoe-horn in David Miliband. Paradoxically, it was the Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) that put a stop to a rushed Leadership contest; but then ignored the Rule Book regarding nominations for the Deputy . Admittedly, the General Secretary reported legal advice. However, that was shown subsequently to be non-existent. But the machine ground on oblivious. Nor did the NEC's appetite for a show of openness and transparency over the Leadership contest stop it from extending a dubious interpretation of the Rules to effectively exclude so-called leading left-winger John McDonnell from the contest.

Whoever is announced as the new Leader on Saturday 25 September should be asking her/himself whether the Party machine would function better if there were a broad and well understood consensus about the Rules, rather than infinite scope for scheming and manipulation. Statements from the candidates to date are not encouraging. Lots of warm words about openness and transparency, listening to members and the like, but a lack of necessary attention to detail to be persuasive.

Beyond the Rules, and the need to be guided by them if not bound, are a multitude of issues about organisational structures, personnel and finance. As reported previously, when elected to the NEC I requested among other things a copy of the budget and the latest management accounts. I was refused. Moreover, the NEC's Terms of Reference (ToR) were changed at my first full NEC meeting in November 2008. Of course, they were not changed by diktat. There was a veneer of democracy, namely a 'vote'. I  recorded my dissent and stated publicly that I remained to be convinced the ToR were fit for purpose. Contributors to this blog have argued that I was seeking to engage in micro-management. Far from it, management accounts in large organisations are summaries of a budgetary and accounting system that, if well presented, highlight trends. A new leader could change the internal culture of the Labour Party at a stroke by demanding full disclosure on a confidential basis for all NEC members both of the budget, and the management accounts.

This should be done in the context of rebuilding the Party's finances to fight future elections, not on the basis of the requirements of the Electoral Commission, important though they are. The Labour Party of the future needs to establish a complete picture of money flows both local, regional and nationally. Currently head office takes no meaningful interest in the finances of its party units that generate less than £25K income a year, even though that amount is more than enough to fund local activity throughout the electoral cycle between General Elections.

It should not have gone unnoticed that Labour fought the last election without increasing its borrowing. This does not mean to say that one of the cogs in the machine, namely the General Secretary didn't try and turn in that direction. I don't blame him for trying. But the NEC said: No. Labour's campaign had to financed out of cash in hand and donation. Head Office has a very successful fundraising department targeting wealthy Labour members and supporters, as well as the trade unions. The latest donation figures from the Electoral Commission show over £10 million was given to the Party to help finance the election in Q2 2010. That was despite fighting the Tories and the Lib-Dems with 'loser' Brown as Leader. The election results showed where Labour had activists on the ground in sufficient numbers, it could hold seats, as it did, for example, in Islington South, Oxford East, Tooting and Westminster North against the national trend.

UPDATE SEE COMMENTS: I wrote: In the exceptional case of Oxford East, the seat was retained with very little printed literature at all. Antonia comments: It's nonsense. See my comment for my apology for possibly misunderstanding the level of printed literature distributed and its impact on the outcome.

I have already challenged John Prescott's pitch for the post of Party Treasurer on the grounds that he doesn't seem to have got the message - it's members that count, not money of itself. Of the leadership contenders, David Miliband is the most suspect of a 'filthy lucre fixation', with his boast that he has demonstrated his money-raising capacity. Sure, but was it ethical? The Labour Party still lacks an ethical donations policy. The Party machine from sitting MPs, the vast majority of the National Executive Committee, though Head Office and Regional staff appear frightened of members playing a greater role. Why? Because, they would have to be more accountable to them.

A new Leader could set the tone by quietly insisting that the whole NEC is on the platform for the Annual Report and Accounts, and insisting that delegates are entitled to ask questions of any NEC member. That could be done in Manchester in four weeks' time. With regard to staff, the contenders should take a  particular interest in the Erith and Thamesmead ballot box tampering affair in 2009, as yet unresolved. Members will recall there was a high profile selection process featuring the young Georgia Gould, daughter of former PM Tony Blair's favourite pollster. She was seeking the nomination as Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. In controversial circumstances,  the Labour Party high command decided to take control of the process and lodged the ballot box in Head Office. After the alleged 'break-in', the selection ballot had to be re-run via solicitors. An internal inquiry was instituted by the NEC, since then - silence. Unconfirmed reports allege that senior staff representatives have blocked DNA testing that might help the General Secretary with his inquiries. 

That unsavoury episode underlines the extent of distrust between active members and party staff that has to be addressed if the Party is going to regroup successful to harness all the talents of its members and supporters.

I hope some of this issues will be touched on in the remaining hustings especially by my first and second preferences, not to mention the need for proper policy debates at Conference. Hence my headline '1st= priority'.

Labour Party policy-making: a suitable case for treatment

Daniel Blaney writing on LabourList challenges Ed Miliband on the return of party democracy to policy making. I think the questions should apply to all the leadership candidates.  Personally, I'm not convinced that what the Party needs is a return to resolution based policy making pre-1997. That view was shared by the LabOUR Commission, which made detailed recommendations in 2007 about reforming the policy making process. Though I am aware that there is talk of a return to the old ways among affiliated TU political committees and the like, as well as among some members in the constituencies.

There is no doubt Partnership in Power (as the revised arrangements agreed in 1997 were known) was hi-jacked by No. 10. A matter about which one of the Leadership candidates, David Miliband, has particular knowledge and experience of, and about which he in particular should be challenged.

If it is to survive the deliberative policy making process will no doubt be renamed Partnership into Power. However, there are serious and urgent challenges that need to be addressed asap by the NEC which are as follows:

1. an immediate restoration of contemporary resolutions for debate at Conference 2010,

2. acceptance of any resolution arising from defeat, the formation of the ConDem coalition and its policies and Labour's flawed 2010 Manifesto (bearing in mind the NPF hasn't met since February 2009, and the Clause V meeting was in mid-April 2010 and no policy commissions have met since the General Election).

3. the Priorities Ballot should be run on a 4+4 basis so that at least 8 contemporary issues are debated following compositing, and then voted on by card vote to establish Conference's support/opposition precisely

4. a founding meeting of the newly elected National Policy Forum should be convened asap (if possible at Conference) to:

   1. elect a chair

   2. agree the formation of policy commissions

   3. elect representatives to them

   4. agree a work programme

   5. harness the policy expertise of all interested members

   6. use electronic media to enable any member to comment on proposals as they emerge, and surveys and opinion polling to maximise participation and representative sampling of both members and the electorate

5. a budget to support policy development and service the above

6. protocols to ensure that the requirements of effect policy opposition in the Houses of Parliament and policy development of Labour's future election manifestos are established between the new Leader, the PLP and the JPC, and regularly monitored by the NEC between Conferences

The NEC should not wait for the election of a new Leader to get on with this business. Prompt action pre-Conference is one way of reminding the Leadership candidates that it is the National Executive Committee - representing all stakeholders - that is responsible for the stewardship of the Party between Conferences - not the Leader alone.

At last Labour's leadership contest blown open - Diane Abbott declares

Diane Abbott has transformed Labour's Leadership election into a proper contest. Her declaration on BBC Radio 4 galvanised the listening public and rendered her interviewer momentarily speechless. I had the privilege in 1987 of helping organise her campaign in the Brownswood Ward of Hackney North and Stoke Newington - a modest contribution to the election of Britain's first black woman MP. 

She has a rare political talent - an ability to connect to people, understand their concerns and articulate them as their elected representative. I applauded the Miliband brothers for agreeing to differ and both run for election - guaranteeing an election, not a coronation. So I applaud Diane for electrifying the debate with the promise of diversity - both gender and ethnicity. Left-winger John McDonnell's declaration earlier this week brought the promise of a wider range of political views. How long that lasts may depend on the race for the necessary 33 nominations.

The Labour Party's Procedures Committee meets today to reconsider the rules including a controversial decision (opposed at the NEC by Christine Shawcoft and myself from the Centre Left Grassroots Alliance) to impose a 27 May deadline for nominations by Labour MPs. Pressure is mounting for an extension. My reading of the Rules is that should be until end July enabling any declared candidate to take part in hustings.

Labour leadership - proper debate impossible without more brotherly love

Listening to the Labour Party leadership coverage to date, I have come to the conclusion that an evident appetite for the widest possible reflection and proper debate will be impossible without a rethink - not of the rules, but how the principal players behave in the circumstances. We need even more brotherly love.

As set out the Labour Party rules concerning valid nominations have come to dominate Leadership contests. Labour MPs (members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP)) have the whip hand. They and they alone can determine who can and cannot get on the ballot paper. In the event of a vacancy, Rule 4.2.B.i says that 12.5% of Labour MPs must nominate to ensure a place on the ballot paper. In the event of no vacancy, under Rule 4.2.B.ii says that 20% of Labour MPs are required. It need not be like that.

David and Ed have had their Mother Miliband moment, eshewed deals and guaranteed an election for the next Leader of the Labour Party. Both seem confident of getting the necessary nominations. For that they deserve genuine applause and gratitude. After listening to Ed Miliband declare his candidacy yesterday at the Fabian Society post-election conference, I went to an alternative Labour movement event organised by the Labour Representation Committee and Labour Briefing at which there was a discussion about the prospects of getting John McDonnell MP on the ballot paper. I doubt that his prospects are any better even with a smaller PLP, than they were in 2007. But in winding up a workshop debate on 'Fighting for Labour's future - A Left turn', I committed to playing my part to try and achieve that aim. Not because I necessarily agree with John, but because I believe there is a significant proportion of party members (both individuals and affiliates) and people in the wider Labour movement, who do. They deserve to be heard in this debate. But will the Party be offered real choice? I think not. That would be wrong, both as a matter or principle and in practice. There is also a question of how the Party is going to be funded. We need to persuade those hundreds of thousands of former members who have resigned or lapsed to come back, and those thinking of joining anew to put their money where their mouths are and sign a direct debit to show real commitment.

So, the power brokers, and in this I include the affiliated trades unions and Unite the Union in particular, need to think very carefully about how they exercise their influence between now and the close of nominations.

To be valid Leadership candidate requires the backing of 33 Labour MPs on a nomination paper (NB not 32 as I have peviously blogged and tweeted incorrectly by rounding down instead of up). That part of the process does not have to be a popularity contest among prospective candidates inside the PLP itself. (Though human nature being what it is, the prospects of changing that state of affairs is not great. So I not under any illusions.)

However, in the search for the most diverse and widest possible contest, I will persist, however, foolishly.  Who are the power brokers I am referring to? Well in the first instance, there are the candidates themselves. On the basis of current information, there will be no woman, and/or no Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic candidates. That in itself is a serious indictment of Labour Party political progress in its 100-year plus history. Nor will all the political wings of the Labour Party be represented. What we are facing is the prospect of continuity candidates with different trills of mea cupla.

What can possibly be done? The Miliband brothers have already demonstrated a way forward through brotherly love. We now need more of that in the form of comradely behaviour, ideally before the nomination papers for the positions of Labour Leader and Deputy are issued. All it needs is just one candidate not just to acknowledge the need for both diversity, and political breadth. But do something about it. That would help transform the nature of the contest.

What to do? The next step would be a big ask of their PLP supporters. As soon as a Labour leader candidate gets 33 nominations, every extra MP nomination is a wasted vote. Which of the declared candidate will invite candidates from other political wings of the Labour Party to stand and offer to lend 'wasted' PLP nomination votes to enable such candidates get on the ballot paper?

As matters stand, there is a very serious risk the widest possible debate will be reduced to grades of the proverbial Rizla paper, as illustrated here. So who is up for challenge? Ed, David? Or Ed Balls, or Andy Burnham or Jon Cruddas or whoever else thinks they can make the cut. To be credible it has to come from a candidate able to show 33 nominees now. So who is it?

Can/will the electorate 'conspire' to dump Labour's Brown?

With 12-days to go British Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Gordon Brown is facing a pincer movement by the other two competing egos seeking to govern Britain. Brown's legitimacy as party leader was compromised in 2007 when he assumed the leadership of his party in what many commentators described as a 'coronation'. That was the inevitable outcome of a process that resulted in no other member of the parliamentary labour party being able to secure the 44 backers needed to force an election. Labour Party members and affiliates that form the other two parts of Labour's leadership electoral college consequently had no say. This will all come into play if Labour fails to secure the largest share of the popular vote and a majority of seats in the new House of Commons when the counting is finished after 6 May 2010.

Labour election strategy hangs on its ability to get across a simple message. "It's the economy, stupid." "We saved you from the abyss" is not as compelling as "You've never had it so good". Brown reduced the campaigning slogan to : 'Jobs, jobs, jobs' immediately after the second televised prime ministerial debate. The bedrock of Britain's parliamentary democracy - political party mass membership has crumbled in the post war period. The country faces a 'game change' moment when the professional political class stages another coup to further distance the electorate from the elected.

Contraditions abound. The advocates of proportional representation (PR) for elections to the House of Commons have been claiming of decades that votes don't count. There is even a campaign for PR called 'Make votes count' run by a Liberal Democrat. Yet here we are on the eve of a General Election under first past the post (FPTP) when the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are positioning themselves in the post-electoral scene in which the proportion of votes cast for each party WILL COUNT. Brown's claim to remain prime minister will depend on how many votes are cast for Labour Party candidates, IRRESPECTIVE of whether the seat has traditionally been Conservative, Liberal (Democrat), and more recently Scottish Nationalist or Plaid Cymru. Ever fleet of electoral foot m'Lord Mandelson has spotted that too, and opined accordingly. 2010 is not the year for tactical voting.

To win Labour has a mountain to climb. Whilst I'm glad Mandelson has spotted the blindingly obvious in that regard, he has been exceptionally slow and ridiculously stubborn in acknowledging the catastrophic blunders made by New Labour under former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Brown's only chance of remaining prime minister, and Labour winning a fresh mandate is if he and his allies are candid with the electorate.

As Labour Foreign Secretary David Miliband conceded in a foreign affairs debate with the Conservatives' William Hague and Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat spokemen when asked if he would still have supported the invasion of Iraq if he had known then what was known now, he said:

“Obviously there would have been no such decision.

“Because if we had known then what we know now, if we'd have known that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, there would have been no UN resolutions and no vote in the House of Commons.

Brown needs to be similarly forthright about his handling of the economy. Major errors were made by New Labour which relied too heavily on the private sector, especially the financial sector. A major shortage of affordable housing was another blunder of the New Labour ideologists. Remarkably Britain is still a major world manufacturer, despite having no strategic industrial policy for 10 years under New Labour. All that has been changed on Brown's watch. Britain is out of Iraq. (No one questions the legitimacy of the was in Afghanistan, just the tactics.) Brown steered not just Britain, but the world out of the 2008 banking crisis, and subsequent recession. No question. Yes, recovery is fragile. But the adverse consequences in terms of jobs and repossessions were far less than forecast 18 months ago. The banking system did not collapse. We were able to continue drawing cash from the ATMs.

Yes, the cost of recovery has been increased public borrowing. But that is what government's are for. That's the lesson of the last century. At last in Brown and the Labour Party, Britain has a prime minister and political party that understands what government is for. The public finances are not in meltdown. The only real risks to jobs, homes, schools and the NHS arise arguably from a Conservative government, or the uncertainty arising from a possible Tory/Lib-Dem administration. (Even a scant knowledge of their respective positions on the economy and electoral reform screams - polls apart!)

What Labour election strategists have to grapple with is who are the best advocates of these messages. We are stuck with another televised debate. But for some of the electorate election day has already come and gone, some postal votes have already been delivered, filled in and returned. Labour supporters are going to have to use crowd techniques to get easily understood messages across in the final few days. Brown has got to be contrite and collegiate. Lord Mandelson ditto. Team Labour has to be allowed to speak.

Is this symptomatic of what's wrong with the Labour Party?

Sifting through the quotes from members of the Parliamentary Labour Party in the wake of last night's meeting I have been searching for mentions of those of us who deliver leaflets, knock on doors and devote time voluntarily to get Labour representatives elected.

This one takes the biscuit.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband told the BBC: "The Parliamentary Labour Party has reached a settled view about the leadership. The Labour Party does not want a new leader. There is no vacancy. There is no challenger."

Note the hop, skip and a jump. PLP = The Labour Party. Excuse me. Until the nomination papers are issued under Rule, with respect, Foreign Secretary [sic] you have no right to say: "The Labour Party does not want a new leader."

Grassroots a 'source of good sense' - Miliband D sources

This morning I'm finishing off some CLP admin from our July meeting. I started with a heavy heart. Our motion on Zimbabwe has to be formally despatched to the usual suspects - General Secretary, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, chairs of the Britain in the World policy commission. Destination - dustbin.

Catching up with the morning papers, I was mightly heartened by Patrick Wintour's follow up piece in Guardian on what prompted the David Miliband article earlier in the week. He reported:

Miliband may be steeped in policy wonkery and the foreign chancelleries of Europe, but he is also one of those politicians that finds his north-east seat a sounding board and source of good sense.

David is the MP for South Shields. So that set me thinking about how that CLP 'good sense' could be tapped into more widely. The communications means are available to connect every member/branch/CLP secretary to every elected Labour Party representative. But the general belief in the grassroots is that nobody is listening.

So what is it about South Shields CLP and how it formulates collective views that has enabled it such influence? Those of us committed to rebuilding the Party, re-energising campaigning and kindling local fundraising need to know.

Don't be shy David - sign Gordon's nomination

Let's be done with all this media speculation. It's so uplifting when a Cabinet Minister refers to the Labour Party rule book as he did in his Guardian article citing a section from Chapter 1, Clause IV (FOUR) printed on the Party card. Fast forward to Chapter 4 Rule B 2 (ii). Bring out the garlic, stake and cross. Woaaah...rules are for little people...well, if they are good enough for David - now widely acclaimed as Leader-in-waiting at least by the fourth estate and Political Betting, they are good enough for me.

This is how Chapter 4 Rule B 2 (ii) starts:

ii. Where there is no vacancy, nominations shall be sought each year prior to the annual session of party conference.

Quite so. Don't worry, Gordon you don't have to do a Major and resign to play a 'Put-up -or-shut-up' gambit. You just have to be humble and submit yourself to a democractic process designed to give your fellow Party members a chance to signal whether you have their continued support or not. So are you up for it? More critically after David's article is he willing to lead the charge?

Miliband D writes in Guardian

Here is a preview. Here's the Miliband piece.