Peter Kenyon

Final NEC meeting, pic with Ed - he'll save the Labour Party

My two year term as an elected constituency section representative on the Labour Party National Executive Committee ended a few minutes ago.

It was the handover meeting when newly elected members were welcomed, and those departing are thanked and presented with a certificate. Fitting that it was Ed Miliband who did the honours, ironic that I failed to get re-elected when the Party elected a leader whom I believe will save the Labour Party.

Earlier at a Q&A in the Conference Hall, Ed wrapped up the session calling for mass-membership. He called for more members than in 1997. (That's 407,000). For all of us who have been campaigning through Save the Labour Party, it is a very precious moment. On your behalf, I thanked him. Now the real work starts to turn that optimism into a mass movement to win back a majority in the House of Commons.

 

 

Glazing over - bewilderment at joining the Labour Party - what's the antidote?

I'm struggling with what to say, beyond the usual welcome and signposting, to all those people who have just joined the Labour Party,. They have now been assigned to a local Labour Party branch based on their postcode. I wonder how many of them knew that when they filled in the application form and paid their membership fee? I have a dual responsibility as local branch secretary, as well as secretary of the constituency labour party (CLP) - all the detested aspects of 'Old Labour' rolled up in an official function - booking rooms, drawing up agendas, assembling papers, finding speakers, writing minutes.

I'm already drowning. How do I explain a branch? Ditto a constituency? My branch is City of London. It covers 25 electoral wards. Elsewhere some are contiguous with a local government electoral ward from which councillors are elected to the local councils and so I could go on.

My experience of Labour Party life is that the majority of members pay their subscriptions as an expression of civic engagement and that's it. They have lots of entitlements such as choosing candidates for balloting, whether for public office or internal positions, like currently that of Leader, and helping shape policy. On the other hand the vast majority of staff who work for the Labour Party believe members are for delivering leaflets, and knocking on doors - fullstop. According to one apocryphal tale - the Labour Party should be 'massive, but passive'. Their latest wheeze is not even to send out nomination papers for Deputy Leader, when Rule 4.2.D.i says:

When the PLP is in opposition in the House of Commons, the election of the leader and deputy leader shall take place at each annual session of party conference.

I know it came as a bit of shock to some people that we might not win the 2010 General Election. But we are where we are - in Opposition. So given my tasks this morning, assembling all the information cascading in about elections - Leader, Deputy Leader, National Executive Committee - Division III CLPs, Party Treasurer, Auditors, Conference Arrangements Committee, National Constitutional Committee, National Policy Forum Division 1 CLP section, London Mayor, not forgetting the CLP Chair's report, 2010 General Election Report, Westminster City Council 2010 Election Report, Treasurer' Report - you may discern my dilemma. Mark my words, if I omit any prospective candidate's statement for any one of the offices cited above, I run the risk of being accused of a 'stitchup' by someone in the Labour Party who does not share my views either about governance or policy.

In the meantime, those eager new or returning members are awaiting encouragement (or, perhaps, not). So it's time to hit the eMail/telephone and find out. I think that should be my first priority. But.... the paperwork. Procrastination, yeah. But it's all in a good cause. I just hope my initial contact is warmly welcomed. Our branch has what I like to think of as a healthy blend of campaigning, debate, fundraising and socialising. There's a risk. The idea of meeting with an agenda could provoke glazing over, and bewilderment. It just that the campaigning, debate, fundraising and socialising don't just happen - they require organisation. We could revert to the leitmotif of new Labour - sofa government - no written agendas, no minutes. That worked didn't it? Oh, stop it, Kenyon, get on the blower.

Labour leadership candidates - watch those expenses

I am not sure of the wisdom of early declarations by Labour Leadership wannabes before the timetable or rules for the contest have been agreed by Labour's ruling National Executive Committee (NEC). The last Leader/Deputy elections were mired with issues about campaign donations as candidates amassed five and six-figure sums to woo Labour Party members.

According to report at the time the Deputy Leadership candidates war chests were as little as £4,000 declared by Hilary Benn to an eye-watering £180,000-£200,000 by Peter Hain. A similarly large sum was raised by the only valid candidate for the Leadership - Gordon Brown.

In the wake of the anonymous donations scandal to the Labour Party itself which swept away General Secretary Peter Watt in controversial crcumstances, now interim Labour Party Leader Harriet Harman was forced to pay back £5,000 given to her by a property developer who has secretly bankrolled Labour to the tune of £600,000. Peter Hain was obliged to resign as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to defend himself in the face of a police inquiry into his campaign donations triggered by the Electoral Commission. And he did so successfully, but it took a long time.

So the best advice to all concerned would be proceed with caution, and making sure you keep very good records of both donations and expenses.

Setting the agenda for Labour's leadership: accountability

Before the debate about who will be the next elected leader of the Labour Party gets overwhelmed by the X-factor, let's focus on the x-factor - the ones on ballot papers at the next set of elections. There could be  another general election in less than 12 months. In any event, there will be some local elections next May, plus Scottish Parliamentary and locals, and the Welsh Assembly all of which are now four-year fixed term events.

Labour is still carrying baggage from its 13-years in government at Westminster, as well as having an extraordinary list of achievements to its credit. New Labour's critical and ultimately lethal fault (in electoral terms) was abandonment of accountability. It started before the 1997 landslide, with the suspension of shadow cabinet meetings six months earlier, and it was all too evident yesterday at a hastily arranged special National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting to hear plans for further talks with the Liberal-Democrats.

You might be wondering whether I have lost my marbles, but yes, while the media was reporting the Lab-Lib talks were over, finito, some 30 member of Labour's ruling NEC were crowded into the Hamlyn Room in 39 Victoria Street with party staff hanging onto a conference call with outgoing Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He set out the mechanisms for deciding the terms of a Lab-Lib pact. Surreal, to the point of farce. Any deal would have depended critically on the 258 women and men freshly elected Labour MPs. Had anyone in the Labour leadership bother to consult even the current chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party? We all know the answer. No. As for the NEC chair, forget it. Events have brought that nonsense to an abrupt and tragic end. The lessons have to be learned if Labour wants more x-factor at the polls.

The Prime Minister and his government did have to go through the constitutional necessity of ensuring continuing, before bowing to the inevitability of electoral arithmetic. But that did not give any of the Cabinet authority to unilaterally decide a negotiating brief or the emissaries that might have taken Labour into coalition. In the well established practices of New Labour a shameless papering over the cracks was proposed at the NEC. (I won't bore you with the detail, but am happy to respond to comments.) I supported the talks about a rainbow coalition as a political necessity, knowing the arithmetic was tight. But I oppose abuse of power and lack of accountability. So a set of tests is needed to judge the credentials of those leadership wannabees that goes beyond what triumphs down a TV lens, especially those who were Cabinet members only 24 hours ago.

Harriet Harman now Labour Party leader pro-tem

Following Gordon Brown's announcement in Downing Street of his resignation as Leader of the Labour Party prior to tendering his resignation as Prime Minister to Her Majesty the Queen, Harriet Harman becomes leader pro-tem.

The Labour Party Rule Book Clause 4. 2. B. iv says:

When the party is in opposition and the party leader, for whatever reason becomes permanently unavailable, the deputy leader shall automatically become party leader on a pro-tem basis. The NEC shall decide whether to hold an immediate ballot as provided under E above or to elect a new leader at the next annual session of party conference.

And opposition is where we are as expected here.

The timetable decision for the election of a new leader will be taken next week. However, there are scurrilous suggestions that the timetable should be brought forward together with the planned National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum elections in the constituency section. Expect strong resistence from this quarter.

Selection in the spotlight: Stoke Central - be grateful peasants

The Labour Party's fasttrack selection process for Stoke Central has produced a shortlist reportedly of three candidates. How the chosen three candidates are received and treated by members of the local constituency labour party at a hustings due to take place on Thursday remains to be seen. I have long since lost confidence in the fasttrack selection process and those administering it. The question for the majority of my colleagues on the National Executive Committee is whether they have too and are prepared to act to challenge this latest shortlisting decision.

For those who have forgotten these are the key words from a National Executive Committee resolution agreed nem con last November:

When the General Election is called the right of members to select their candidates will remain a priority consideration for the panel.

The operative words are 'will remain a priority'. I know we merely entrust the government of the country to the Leader of the Party that won the last General Election. We depends on the words Parliament chooses to enshrine in statute to determine how we are governed, and in the event of dispute those words help guide the judiciary when forming a judgment in any case arising there from.

So the 'right of members to select their candidates' is a priority given that a General Election has not been called? Apparently not. For my part, I would readily support a resolution calling for an emergency meeting of the NEC to overturn the delegated powers of the Special Selections Panel, with a view to removing the undue influence (if any) of the Leader/deputy leader and trade union donors from remaining selections. The concern is that by their actions to date they could be seen as bringing the Labour Party into disrepute, just like the Lobbygate Three/Four/Six. The cause for concern is that s/he/they are undermining trust in our democracy and our elected political representatives. In the case of Stoke, it is alleged that a candidate preferred by an unelected member of the Labour Party leadership, to whom the elected Leader (by default) is possibly beholden, is one of three shortlisted persons.

Members in Stoke Central will no doubt be reflecting very carefully on how their rights have been compromised and asking whether they have any means of registering their concerns.

Parliamentary seat engineering: Hunt for Stoke Central - update 2

Longlisting for Stoke Central to decide who will replace sitting MP Mark Fisher as Labour's candidate is expected to take place today.

Word has is that Tom Watson MP (who mysteriously sits on the Labour Party's ruling (sic) national executive committee as a government representative even though he's been out of government since July last year) has been stopped from chairing any more of the three-member selection panels. 

The baton to ensure a particular outcome may have been passed to Deputy Leader Harriet Harman, it is alleged, who, since husband Jack Dromey won the All Male Shortlisted ballot in Birmingham, Erdington, is free once again to take part in parliamentary seat engineering, as I call it. Her name is being linked to a private understanding with m'lord Mandelson in a bid to secure seats for favoured candidates.

I can't attest to the voracity of these suggestions. But knowing those who are making them, I consider they must be aired in the hope that sanity will prevail. An open and transparent process could have avoided these suspicions, which are extremely damaging to member morale, and to Labour's electoral prospects.

A shortlist for Stoke Central that offers local members genuine choice in the ballot that will take place shortly will be a real test for the Labour leadership. Is it focussed on winning the election or more concerned about positioning ahead of a leadership contest that would follow defeat?

UPDATE: 0903 Friday 26 March - Harriet Harman is not on the three-member panel that will be interviewing and shortlisting candidates on Monday afternoon, which I understand will comprise Keith Vaz MP, Cllr Ann Lucas and USDAW's Paddy Lillis.

Choice for local members has already been compromised by the omission of Mark Seddon, former editor of Tribune and NEC member from the long-list. Given their full right's would Seddon have got some nominations from members? But in the faux democracy deeply engrained in the upper echelons of the Labour Party, those members' rights now count for little, if anything at all. Shameful.

I'll back Brown for a further term as PM, if he accepts party democracy

Today's Times is reporting that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is promising to serve a full-term as PM if re-elected. Tom Baldwin reports:

Gordon Brown will ask voters to give him “a full second term” at the election...

Let's unpack this story. We, the British people don't elect our Prime Ministers. Gordon Brown is PPC for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. If he gets re-elected (and I genuinely hope he is) is will be by the voters in that constituency. Political parties, not 'voters'  elect their leaders. The Queen invites a party leader most-likely to be able to form a government to do so and appoints s/he as Prime Minister. That's the case whether the Tories, Lib-Dems or Greens win the largest number of seats in the House of Commons.

In New Labour's case a confidence trick was pulled on the Labour Party after the 1997 General Election. Labour Party members were denied an annual opportunity to make nominations for the elected post of Leader/Deputy leader, as set out in Rule 4.2.B.ii. No nomination papers for Leader/Deputy leader have been routinely circulated to party stakeholders ever since. The powers that be' have maintained that this practice only applies when Labour is in opposition. They insist that this interpretation of the Rules has been checked out with the Party's lawyers. I have looked into the expertise of those lawyers 'consulted' and none is a constitutional expert. Arguably, Tony Blair would have lost the confidence of the Labour Party much earlier had that 'safety-valve' for member opinion about the Leader's performance been in place throughout the last 13 years. Alternatively, had that reality check been in place, the Labour Party would never have drifted so far from addressing the needs of the majority of the electorate, who depend on their wits and/or labour (as opposed to capital) to keep body and soul together.

Hopefully, those advising the Prime Minister will see the electoral merit in being honest with voters about Britain's unwritten constitution, as well as the critical importance of raising, not eroding, party morale at this vital moment.

I would happily support Gordon Brown continuing as Party Leader and PM. But that depends on his willingness now to state unequivocally that serving a full-term would depend on his ability to retain the confidence of his Party throughout that period.

PLP plotters chicken out

Well, well what a surprise: Hot No News: Tony Lloyd re-elected unopposed as PLP chair. Only a surprise to anti-Brown hacks who predicted otherwise

http://twitter.com/Kevin_Maguire/status/5986030461

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."