Peter Kenyon

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?

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.

Active Labour parties yield local council results

Further evidence of the bedrock of the Labour Party can be seen in yesterday's local council by-election results.

RESULTS:

Blackburn with Darwen Borough - Queens Park: Lab 638, Lib Dem 366, C 174. (May 2008 - Lab 756, Lib Dem 722). Lab gain from Ind. Swing 10.3% Lib Dem to Lab.

Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough - Newchapel: C 208, Ukip 148, Lab 138, Lib Dem 127. (May 2008 - C 416, Lab 220, Lib Dem 180, Ukip 127). C hold. Swing 10.4% C to Ukip.

North East Derbyshire District - Holmewood and Heath: Lab 373, C 209. (May 2007 - Lab unopposed; April 1O 2008 by-election - Lib Dem 382, Lab 356, C 165). Lab gain from Lib Dem.

Tandridge District - Whyteleafe: Lib Dem 444, C 236, Ukip 99. (May 2008 - C 526, Lib Dem 407, Lab 45). Lib Dem hold. Swing 19.4% C to Lib Dem.

Labour Party council seat wins from Tories, Lib-Dems and BNP

What are the stories behind this crop of excellent results for Labour Party candidates posted on Labour Matters?

Labour Party election strategies would do well to explore the details of local campaigning for General Election lessons.

I suggested to Labour Party leader Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the last National Executive Committee meeting that he got a briefing from the General Secretary on how many wards based on electoral boundaries (c. 10,000 voters) still have active Labour Party branches.

An active branch in every electoral ward should be a central party objective if we want to re-establish Labour as the party of government.

Is Labour operating a scorched-earth policy in Stoke-on-Trent?

This report appeared in my Google Alerts for the Labour Party overnight about the latest developments in the Labour Party in Stoke-on-Trent. It is from a local blog Pits'n'Pots. The author former Labour Group leader Mike Barnes writes:

This witch hunt is brought about by those that want to blame everybody but themselves for the mess the local Labour Party and more importantly, the City is in. They cannot see that they completely disconnected with the people: that the whole experimental disaster of the Elected Mayor is directly responsible for this monumental downfall.

This operation is under the control of the Labour Party's Organisation Sub-Committee. There are evidently questions to be asked at next week's NEC.

Labour NEC meets in two weeks - what should be on the agenda?

In the interests of openness and accountability, I would like to hear from any Labour Party member, or supporter: what steps you would like to see the Party's National Executive Committee take to improve Labour's chances of a bigger win in next year's General and local council elections?

Labour PPC selections and postal voting

Journalists from the Guardian and the Independent have rung me in the last 24 hours about the postal voting issues in prospective parliamentary selections in Calder Valley and Erith and Thamesmead.

Like lots of other people I am concerned that the Labour Party's rules are not being administered properly. The selection in Calder Valley involved 61% of members voting by post - 90 out of a total of 147 votes cast. In Erith and Thamesmead, Tribune reported last week that a third of members had applied for postal votes.

The point I made to both the Guardian and the Independent is that it appears on the surface that a shift in public policy towards postal voting had taken place inside the Labour Party, without any change in its Rules. My concerns are that our PPCs rely on voluntary help at election time. Any suggestion of manipulation of a selection is detrimental to volunteers' willingness to campaign. Members who have taken part in selections and accept that the best candidate won in an open and transparent selection may be more likely to want to go out campaign and get that candidate elected.

That is what is at issue. According to this morning's Yorkshire Post: "A spokesman for the Yorkshire and the Humber Labour Party said the Calder Valley contest had been carried out under the rules laid down by the party's National Executive Committee and Steph Booth had gained a "clear victory.""

I hope the General Secretary is urging his staff to exercise a little more caution about these matters until the astonishingly high proportion of PV votes has been examined thoroughly. This should be part of a wider inquiry into the conduct of PPC selections, which I believe would be best undertaken in the context of membership recruitment and retention.

Is the Labour Party contesting every election possible?

Yesterday evening I picked up the phone to follow up an eMail from a CLP secretary concerned about the Labour Party's priorities. A council by-election has been triggered by the death of a sitting Tory councillor. At the same time the CLP has just had its share of membership subscriptions sequestered by the Labour Party nationally to part-pay a flat-fee of £1,200 towards the costs of the Euro-elections being outcharged to every CLP in the country. This is despite letters from the CLP to HO to offer to pay in instalments, so that the local party can continue to meet local campaign costs.

Questions are now being asked by volunteers locally whether to bother to field a candidate in the forthcoming local council by-election.

This example raises a number of issues. I don't want to detract from the importance of election cycle financial planning by branches, CLPs and other party units, about which HO itself is utterly silent. But foremost concerns the Labour Party's finances nationally. Are they in such a dire state that an equally important national political goal of fighting every seat is being undermined as a consequence? After all we keep on being reminded that every vote counts in the forthcoming European Parliamentary elections in June.

With the world put to rights, it's time to sort out the Labour Party

I received three messages from Labour Party activists yesterday. None referred to the G-20. All were  reporting internal Labour Party developments that will undermine Labour's re-election chances. That is  unless dealt with comprehensively by its National Executive Committee (NEC) pdq. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's re-election prospects were evaluated or commented on here, here and here for starters.

After six months of active service on the NEC. I'm beginning to understand why the Party's membership has fallen some 60% since 1997. Unlike 'civic' mass-membership organisations, there is no coherent quality assured offer to Labour Party members, or those who volunteer to provide local leadership either through the Party's organisation or as its candidates for public office. This is despite an annual membership fee of £38 that is in line with that charged by organisations such as the National Trust and the RSPB.

Skirmishes are on-going between the careerists and the volunteers. The UK is littered with the casulties (lost members) now numbering over 275,000 that have been recorded since Labour was returned to power in Westminster 12 years ago.

Yesterday's calls included one concerning postal vote farming in a high-profile selection of a prospective parliamentary candidate. Another reported threats to Labour Party activists engaged in a successful campaign to decide how their local council should be run. The third message was about how local Labour Parties can be forced to finance election campaigns, without any regard to local circumstances.

The vast majority of Labour Party members are loyal and don't like raising these sorts of  issues publically for obvious reasons. I'm going to give quiet diplomacy a little longer. Gordon Brown has shown how to rebuild the world financial system. Now with the Euro-elections looming, the Party leadership would be well advised to ensure that the Party refashions itself to retain and recruit members.

Labour Party realities 2009

To encourage everyone to vote Labour in 2009 is not going to be easy. Where to start?

As I said in my NEC report No.2, I remain to be convinced that its Terms of Reference are fit for purpose. Making them so remains a key goal. The NEC next meets on 27 January. Then there are the policies that will help rally both members, supporters and the millions of voters that deserted the Labour Party at the 2001 and 2005 General Elections - the Labour Party's National Policy Forum next meets on 28 February. Finally, there is the role of Labour in local government in helping that vital mobilisation. The Labour Party's Joint Local Government Committee next meets on 12 January. 

Will there be focussed debate about how to rebuild? I'll be reporting back at each step of the way for those who are interested. Keep the ideas coming. Happy New Year.