Peter Kenyon

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 Party enforcer overrules local branch vote in Stoke

I know a General Election imminent. I know local elections are imminent. But we live in a democracy. I belong to a political party that put a Freedom of Information Act on the Statute Book. These simple but profound facts are routinely ignored by most of my colleagues on the Labour Party national executive committee.

It is no secret that the Labour Party's local branch structure has been seriously weakened by Blairite design over the past 13 years. No systematic development plan to rebuild is in place. That is despite all the evidence concerning the outcome of the 2010 General Election campaign pointing to the need for members and supporters willing to talk to voters on the doorstep. Will Straw writing on his Left Foot Forward blog noted:

Professors Alan Gerber and Don Green of Yale University have shown that face-to-face contact has a far greater impact on voter turnout than either phone calls or mail. Leaflets increase turnout by 1.2 per cent; volunteer phone calls increase turnout by 3.8 per cent; and door-to-door canvassing increases turnout by between 7 and 11 per cent. 

Labour Party election strategy coordinator, Douglas Alexander says:

"At the end of the day, it's people not posters that win elections."

Meanwhile, in Stoke on Trent, there seems to be no limit to the Labour Party NEC's determination to destroy its organisational capacity on the ground. A meeting of Hartshill and Penkhull branch labour party was convened on Friday 19 March 2010 by the Labour Party's senior constitutional officer to select a candidate for the one seat in the ward up for election on 6 May 2010.  After the formalities, the procedural motion to move to the vote was moved and DEFEATED. So quite rightly no selection took place. It was the latest twist in a running battle between local members and the Labour Party 'powers that be' firmly rooted in the detested electoral mayoral fiasco.

Imagine the surprise and consternation in the land of Pits'n'Pots, when last week ballot papers were despatched by post to Hartshill and Penkhull members. They were offered two candidates, neither of whom had been selected by branch members. Asked for an explanation, party officials said they had been instructed by the NEC's Organisation Committee chair Cath Speight to ignore the branch vote.

Is there any wonder that it is still proving difficult to motivate members?

Stoke: 20 council seats up for election: candidates picked by members?

Time is rapidly running out for Labour Party members in Stoke to have an opportunity to exercise their rights to select candidates for either the local elections on 6 May.

Those rights were partially restored in Stoke North two weeks ago when the Party's senior constitutional officer asked the CLP secretary to arrange selection meetings for outstanding vacancies, and delegated recruitment to local party officials, subject to NEC endorsement.

In contrast, neighbouring Stoke Central CLP has effectively been suspended. It is threatened with having candidates imposed. Quite how those candidates are even being recruited remains a mystery.

What is now claimed in a comment on this blog is that of candidates selected to date across the City only ONE has been picked by a quorate meeting of local branch members and endorsed by her/his CLP. 

I'm still waiting for is evidence of explicit NEC authority banning the three Stoke CLPs from getting on with the job in the normal manner in the first place. It is time that  my colleagues on the Organisation Committee (aka Org Sub) and the NEC itself took a  "long hard look " at the actions of the West Midlands Regional Office. That's right, just like we are asking the electorate to do when it comes to choosing between Labour and the Tories.

My next job is to complete a timeline of inappropriate, unwarranted and unauthorised interference in the rights of Labour Party members in the City.

Labour Party steamrollering of members' rights in Stoke continues

Labour Party members rights to select candidates for public office are enshrined in the Rule Book. Ever since I was elected to the National Executive Committee and was made aware of party matters in Stoke on Trent, I have been researching how authority for actions in the name of the NEC has been granted.

This morning [email protected]  commented on my last posting. S/he states there is no 2-year plan, but states:

I'm sure that we should have a 2 year plan, agreed and shared amongst all the members but to the best of my knowledge no such document exists.

I have asked the person concerned to reveal their true identity. I  hope that this statement is genuine. If so, it could prove a positive development.

Very urgent action is needed to halt the steamrollering of members' rights to select remaining candidates for Stoke City Council elections on 6 May.

As matters stand, members in three Stoke Central wards,  have been invited to selection meetings in a central location in less than a week's time on Friday 19 March. Those who attend will have NO prior notice of who the candidates are before they arrive at that location. What  the vast majority who do attend will know is that three local members the chair, secretary and political education officer of Stoke Central CLP who all applied to stand had their applications refused and appeals overturned.

Those decisions were not taken by their peers as provided for in the Rule Book, but by persons imposed by the Labour Party NEC, from elsewhere in the West Midlands. The Appeals were conducted by NEC members Mike Griffiths - a former TU representative on the NEC , now removed from his role in Stoke, Cllr Ann Lucas representing local government  and Stephanie Peacock, the Young Labour representative.

What was the NEC doing in Stoke in the first place? I have yet to see any justification that would stand up to public scrutiny for its intervention in the selection of local government candidates in Stoke on Trent. Now we know there is no plan, who authorised this unwarranted intervention? Why should members - all volunteers - tolerate this gross interference in their rights? In particular, why should they take part in selections of candidates whom they have no prior knowledge of, whilst candidates whom they know (warts and all) are refused their rights to stand for the Council under the treat of disciplinary action if they continue to refuse to accept the NEC's authority? In plain language, they are being bullied into submission.

I have just taken a call from another  woman member in Stoke who told me that the regional office and their 'trusties' in Stoke supported by the NEC  "set out to get them". "It is quite awful, and cruel how they have treated Mick Williams and the others."

Mick Williams was given a Labour Party Merit award in 2008.