Peter Kenyon

Bradford West - a lifeline or noose for Labour leader Ed Miliband?

Ed Miliband interviewed in today's Observer newspaper just might be starting to ask pertinent questions about the Labour Party on the ground. According to the paper's political editor, Toby Helm:

At the top of a list of questions he will want to answer is why Labour's canvassing, on the eve of polling, was still showing the party way ahead. "Even by late Wednesday our canvass returns were suggesting that we would win."

The failure to gauge what was happening is part of a wider challenge Miliband wants to address – how to ensure Labour engages better with local people and supporters.

I should point out that I am not the Labour Party's leading expert on canvassing. But I have done my fair share in the last 40 years. Local organisational capacity was my starting point in the Twittersphere as soon as it became evident an upset was in prospect on Thursday night/Friday morning of last week. I asked Fabian Society deputy general secretary @marcusaroberts who was minded to cross his fingers for a Labour retain:

Done CLP audit / electoral ward, membership / campaigning / fundraising capacity? No point crossing fingers.#bradfordwest

This provoked a twitterslapdown from Labour First campaigning guru Luke Akehurst:

@PeterKenyon the Bradford West CLP is extremely active and large so problem not organisational

That compounds the issues that our Leader is going to have to review, and not before time in my view. If a constituency labour party (CLP) that is "extremely active" and "large" to quote Luke can't spot a looming loss of 10,000 votes, then it is not unreasonable to speculate that the Party is suffering systemic failure. NB Luke is seeking re-election to Labour's National Executive Committee. 

Labour has invested heavily in IT support for voter identification in New Labour speak or canvassing as, I'm glad to see, Ed called it in his interview. So it should be possible to analyse the canvass returns by electoral ward/date/canvasser. Let's be clear this is an art, not a science. Critical dates for reviewing Labour's standing might be pre-last date for postal vote applications, last day of canvassing. What were the canvass results (if any) from postal voters? The overarching problem in any canvassing is quality control - filtering out canvasser's inclinations (for example: to pose leading questions, record what they want to hear, discount what they don't want to hear) is impossible at the point of data entry.

High levels of volunteer commitment and dedication are required to reduce the risk of error, and maintain records in a timely fashion on Contact Creator. I would be surprised if any canvassing of representative samples was conducted in key wards in the final week of the campaign. (I have vivid memories of straw poll sampling Labour voters in Brownwood Ward in the last days of the 1992 general election campaign and picking up switching in the wake of the Tories' devastating Tax Bombshell advertising. By then it was too late and we were doomed, as it turned out to another five years' in opposition.)

If nothing else, Ed will learn more about canvassing. He has also promised to revisit the constituency and listen. Very commendable, but who does he listen to? People 'volunteered' by party staff, or a representative sample of Labour core voters as recorded on the canvass returns?

Next there is that bizarre message to staff co-signed by Ed and party general secretary, Iain McNicol issued the day after the by-election. There was no mention of volunteers. What on earth is going in their heads? What more eloquent proof of just how disconnected the Leadership is than a read of this indictment of Labour's political class? We know there are problems with party staff, but this herogram is absurd in the circumstances.

Our staff in Bradford were fantastic. As always our staff give everything for Labour and Bradford West was no exception. Staff can hold their heads high about their performance, we shoulder these problems as one party and we fight back as one party. 

What is it about the Labour Party that performance management doesn't apply to party staff? Then you realise the Leadership is so wedded to the paid-hands model of modern political organisation that with the London Mayoral elections now only weeks ago they have got to keep staff on side. The party on the ground (i.e. volunteers) remain a resource to be developed.

So those of us who thought Ed might be able to save the Labour Party are going to have to go along with the warm words, and, as Marcus did on Thursday night, keep our fingers crossed for 3 May. But that should not detract from the need for a radical new approach to party organisation based on building up from the electoral ward level the Labour Party's volunteer-based membership/campaigning/fundraising capacity with professional support (not control).

If the Bradford West inquest leads Ed to that conclusion, it will represent a lifeline. Continued dependence on the Refounding Labour command and control professional praetorian guard model will prove a noose.

 

Wrestling with Refounding Labour rule changes, contempt and obligation

It's that time of the month when invitations to forthcoming local Labour Party collective gatherings for political debate and organisational matters (aka agendas) need to be crafted and despatched. Technically, I'm in breach of Standing Orders as they should have been despatched two days ago. But hey ho, we are where we are. Neither the chair nor myself as secretary will actually be at the meeting next week. He's found a volunteer to chair, and I'm still hoping to find one to do the minutes.

Hanging over the proceedings like a large black cloud in my mind is Refounding Labour. The new Labour Party 2011 Rule Book requires our branch and constituency annual general meetings to be postposed until after the May 2012 elections. As the official guidance was inconveniently received well after the November monthly branch meetings, the membership as a whole has yet to be notified. Most branches if they meet at all do not hold business meetings in December. The first branch meetings in 2012 would normally be AGMs, with the CLP AGM at the end of February. 

There is an impeccable logic to that cycle. Nominations made at January branch meetings can be circulated as widely as possible to members for February meetings, prior to elections at the end of February. In addition, financial years like the national party run January to December. Given the nature of branch and CLP finances in Cities of London and Westminster, it is straightforward closing the books in time for AGMs. So why change? Ah, now the Rules say so. 

It is that sort of level of detail that passed Peter Hain, the architect of Refounding Labour, by.

Following our July branch meeting, I wrote to him with a copy of an emergency resolution calling for a Special Conference to give members time to consider the proposals, rather than have them bounced through the 2011 Annual Conference.

He wrote back: 

Sorry we simply don't agree because I thought you like me want reforms to empower grass roots members and turn Labour from an obsolete Party like our rivals into a popular movement relevant to today's politics. That's what RF aims to do and you can help make it happen.

Well, I'm sorry Peter, we live on difference planets. If we can't have an AGM at a time convenient to local members - that's disempowerment.

As a branch and CLP secretary it is my duty to encourage and promote adherence to the Rule Book. As a senient being, I view the whole Refounding Labour process as ultra vires - an abuse of power by the leadership and the National Executive Committee, especially the trade union section. But I'm disinclined to encourage open defiance. It would just be a drain on what little emotional energy I have left for the Labour Party.

A simple remedy occurs to me which would be for all branch and CLP officers and delegates to tender their resignations in time for elections to be notified to January branch meetings, with a parallel call for nominations. Mine's in the post to myself. In the meantime, I'm also struggling with what the City of London Labour Party response ought to be the threatened eviction of OccuplyLSX. That will have to wait til the constituency papers are done.

 

Time to make waves now if Labour Party members ever want a say

Making a stand in support of a big issue is becoming increasingly popular. At least outside established party political structures that appears to be true as the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy the London Stock Exchange and similar movements in many other sites around the world are showing.

But within Britain's mainstream political parties, especially Labour and Conservative, and increasing the Liberal Democrats, accountability, party and parliamentary democracy are under threat. Today's Independent newspaper revealed here a possible consensus on the Committee on Standards in Public Life (CSPL) about the state-funding of political parties aka 'snouts in the trough together now' may have been shattered. I hope the correspondent, Andrew Grice is right. Any such increase as proposed by the CSPL further diminishes the prospect of politically active citizens every holding the leaders of their chosen political party to account.

There is a deeply embedded sense of entitlement and contempt for due process displayed by our elected representatives as vividly illustrated all to frequently in public life.

So I'm with former MP Harry Barnes who commented on an earlier post of mine on this site as follows:

"Our Dronfield Labour Party Discussion Group meets on Sunday evening to have a look at what happened at the Labour Party Conference. I hold various Conference material handed to me by a delegate. Ann Black has also been helpful in supplying important links to such material. As I work on matters over the week, I will post material on my own blog "threescoreyearsandten" and on our Discussion Group Blog "dronfieldblather". A report of our meeting is then likely to appear on the Group's blog. Along with the Dronfield Labour Party, we made submissions to "Refounding Labour", "Partnership Into Power" and "New Politics, Fresh Ideas". Our CLP also submitted similar material to Refounding. Of course, nothing made any progress whatsoever. But then the Labour Party does not want the ideas from Labour Party activists even to be heard, for we are considered to be unlike "ordinary people" and are liable to terrify voters. Only the careerist "political class" can be trusted to tuck in with what is wanted. It is in danger of becoming all that will remain. It is time to make waves, before it is all too late."

My best guess is that the new general secretary and the national executive committee (NEC) have until 15 November to get their brains in gear. That is when the NEC discusses strategic issues for the next year. The prospects of anything happening in between now and then are non-existent if past performance is anything to go by. But as our late former leader Harold Wilson reminded us, "A week is a long time in politics."

Could a CLP boycott of Labour Party conference 2012 force change?

To date no information has been released to the best of my knowledge about how many constituency Labour parties (CLPs) sent delegates to Annual Conference 2011 in Liverpool.

Critical and controversial decisions were taken at that event within hours of being published by former Liberal Party member, now Labour MP Peter Hain. Questions remain about their democratic legitimacy. 

Unlike the early 1980s, Labour Party members are now mainly loyal..to a fault - of letting their elected leader behave like a 16th century monarch. This is regrettable. It, in part, accounts for the inability of the Labour Party to recruit and retain members. There is only a limited number of people who can hold sway in the court of King Ed. So far Labour First led by John Spellar MP, with scribe Luke Akehurst, elected to the NEC last year on a joint ticket with Progess, is doing well. 

Data on previous year's Conference CLP delegates suggests a downward trend, like that of membership from 1997 until the 2010 General Election. A question arising from Conference 2011 is whether the stitchup was so blatant that a significant number of CLPs will decide not to bother to send a delegate to Conference 2012.

Even though I am no longer a member of the National Executive Committee, I was rung by the secretary of a CLP in a solid Tory seat to tell me: "never again", not on the grounds of anti-democratic behaviour by the Labour leadership, but because the CLP financial settlement buried in the minutia of Refounding Labour had blown a massive hole in the CLP's budget to fight local elections.

My own branch is minded for ideological reasons to support a Conference 2012 boycott on the grounds of 'No say, No pay' and that applies as much to membership subscriptions as conference delegate fees. Nothing has been formalised yet. But it would not take much more nonsense from the Leader , Ed Miliband, his appointed shadow cabinet and other party apparachniks to tip the balance in that direction.

Whether that could force change towards the staging of a deliberative assembly at Conference 2012, instead of a Nuremberg-style rally, is a moot point.

 

Killer questions for Peter Hain and why Refounding Labour should be remitted

Ed Miliband's election as Labour Party leader a year ago was hailed by Neil Kinnock with the words, "We've got our Party back". Well how wrong can you be? Party head office (HO) took nearly six months to set out its thinking about the future of the Party. My own advice to Peter Hain MP , the apponted elected chair of the National Policy Forum was to look at the recommendations of the LabOUR Commission set out in an interim report in 2007, and the request to HO to access internal data to look more closely at the state of the Party on the Ground. He ignored the work of the 16 Labour Party members involved, and the evidence based approach adopted.

Two particular questions would have been posed in an audit of membership and organisational data:

1. How many electoral wards in the UK are there no Labour Party members

2. How many electoral wards in the UK has the Labour Party got an established branch that matches those boundaries?

At the time I don't think that anyone could have answered the first question, though I'm happy to be corrected. But I do know that today a report can be generated from Member Centre by any e-literate CLP officer to show in which electoral wards the Labour Party has members and how many.

Labour's electoral success increasingly depends on being able to optimise the vote whereever it is - in parliamentary, devolved assembly, or regional government elections with a PR component. That ought to have underpinned Refounding Labour with data provided by HO to help provide essential reality checks to that debate.

Instead both our new Leader, Ed Miliband and his chosen henchman,Peter Hain who replaced Pat McFadden MP as NPF chair, have allowed themselves to be sidetracked by vested interests. Not I hasten to add in the trade union movement, but in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and the Association of Labour Councillors aided by the siren call of community organisers such as the recently ennobled Maurice Glasman, and the Movement for Change, together with comforting reassurance from Labour First's John Spellar and its secretary and NEC constituency representative, Luke Akehurst.

To the extent that there is anything worth salvaging from the proposals as set out are the sections on Party Finances, and the easing of the HO stranglehold over Young Labour. At least there is a recognition of something completely rotten in the way in which HO has dealt with both membership subscriptions and YL for a long time.

But there is no strategy for rebuilding the party using the resources it has from the electoral ward up. That is/ought to be the basic building block for party organisation and financial strategy. If Party officials haven't got their brains round that in the light of the proposed reduction in parliamentary seat and reviews every parliament, then they should and very quickly. Far too much stress has been placed on CLPs many of which are likely to be wiped out before the next General Election. Too little attention has been paid to organisational/accountability issues for local government.  Refounding Labour has simply caved in to representations from leading sitting councillors to abolish Local Government Committees.

For any inquisitive journalist wanting to dig a little deeper into the harsh realities of this bungled consultation, there are delicate questions about who controls the levies currently paid, for example, by Labour local councillors - the incumbents ie sitting councillors, the LGC or local parties? No prizes for guessing.

The national Labour Party as proposed under Refounding Labour will be a stronger agent for the Leader, incumbent elected representatives and those who aspire to follow in their footsteps. I have come to the view that they are getting the services of volunteer members on the cheap. Members are in effect being asked to help the careers of their elected representative without even getting an on going say in the policies of the party, nationally, regionally or in many cases locally. The proposed levies on the elected representatives need, arguably, to be far higher given the model of party organisation proposed.

Peter Hain in his covering letter sent to all e-literate members yesterday said:

We want to open up our process of making policy, both to give party members greater say and to enable supporters and voters to feed in their ideas, so that the party leadership keeps in much closer touch with public opinion.

Well, I'm sorry, Peter, you had your chance with the Refounding Labour consultation and you failed. Why should we believe you? Inquisitive journalists might want to ask him whether any open and transparent consultation systems were proposed at the outset, and why they were refused, not just once but repeatedly through from October 2010 until the present. We even have the unedifying spectacle of Ed Miliband promising on Twitter on 16 July 2011 that Refounding Labour submissions where possible should be published. We are still waiting with less than 72 hours to go before the proposed soviet-style vote on the Refounding Labour package

Scandalous.

At this very late stage in the process, there are few options open to those with doubts. The Campaign for Labour Party Democracy is circulating an Emergency Resolution calling for the vote to be deferred to end of Conference. My own view is that a Resolution from Bridgend calling for a Special Conference made more sense. Though in the absence of publication of submissions (still), my own branch (City of London) took the view next Spring would be better to allow adequate time for reflection.

Of course, no reasonable loyal member of the Labour Party want to see its Leader publicly humiliated at Conference. Equally, no reasonable loyal member of the Labour Party wants to sacrifice the Party again to save a Leader's face. If we have not learned that from the Blair/Brown era, I fear we are doomed to be out of office for a while longer.

So who's the Party's 'national treasure' who will step up to the rostrum in Liverpool on Sunday afternoon to move remittence of the proposals? If Ed wants to regain the initiative, he could do it himself or be a ready seconder.

 

 

 

Refounding Labour: I disagree with Luke Akehurst profoundly

First up among constituency representatives with a report on yesterday's Labour Party National Executive Committee was ultra loyalist and Labour First secretary, Luke Akehurst.

OK, forget the niggles about the consultation process. Forget the bits about voting strength where a consensus is still being sought.

Refounding Labour was never supposed to be a bun-fight about voting strengths. It was supposed to be about creating structures that helped Labour win back power at the next election, and addressing members’ desire for more transparent policy making.

I believe that the bulky document agreed by the NEC yesterday, if properly followed through and implemented, could have a transformative effect.

Who do you think you are fooling, Luke?

Ed Miliband at Annual Conference last year expressed ambitions for a mass-membership party. How can the changes listed below help achieve that objective? The whole process has been corrupted by a top-down command and control appoach. At the time of writing, 4-days before Annual Conference 2011, members are still in the dark about the detail that their delegates are being expected to vote on Sunday. This is soviet-style politics, and shameful.

Let's take the highlights reported by Luke one by one:

• Easier recruitment of less-well off members with new membership rates of £15 for local joiners, registered supporters who join, and trade union members; and a £1 join rate for armed forces veterans

Why would anyone join the Labour Party when its Leadership is evidently not interested in members'  views and Ed Miliband is proving no exception?

  • A new system of funding for CLPs which means that the poorest and smallest constituency parties will move out of a permanent cycle of debt and every CLP will get a basic package of support including access to contact.creator, Euro election leaflets, insurance, and a delegate to Party Conference so they can participate in our internal democracy, and £1.50 per member to cover administration and communication costs. This will transform the ability to campaign of our smaller CLPs. New national funds have been created which CLPs can make bids to - to fund organisers and other aspects of participation in party democracy. There will be losers – the biggest and richest CLPs, like my own – but this is practicing the redistribution and solidarity at the heart of our values.

This is a sop arising from years of central mismanagement of party finances, and fails to address a need to rebuild the party's oganisational capacity including finance from a base in each electoral ward.

• Flexibility for CLPs to organise their local structures the way that best suits their geography and size of membership.

Yet another example of a failure on the part of the NECto recognise the importance of accountability, good governance and quality assurance in its structures. Most other unincorporated voluntary associations in the country from the village hall to the bridge club account for their money, and adhere to giving due notice of business far better than the Labour Party.

• The delayering of a level of bureaucracy with a move from large Local Government Committees sometimes trying to backseat drive councillors to slim-lined and campaigning focused Local Campaign Forums.

Shorthand for removing a layer of accountability from Labour elected representatives

• Affiliate status for Young Labour and the Association of Labour Councillors so they can have a strong, independent voice in our policy-making.

A device for reducing HO interference in the party's youth wing. Still to be tested.

• Reduction of the minimum membership age to 14.

Why 14?

• The enshrinement of community campaigning as a core objective of the Party in a new Clause I of our constitution.

How did a single Labour representative ever win an single election over the last 100 years?

• Every CLP to have a development plan, ending drift from year to year.

Already got one

• A focus on making the union link a living reality at local level with more interaction between CLPs and affiliates.

Ditto

• CLPs encouraged to reach out and engage with local communities and embed community organising in the way they work.

Already done

• Regional parties’ lay Boards to be re-empowered and given responsibility for the health of CLPs in their region.

zzzzzzz

• A registered supporters’ scheme based on the latest campaign technology to enable CLPs to own lists of supporters who do not wish to join, and mobilise them

Wasn't this opposed by most member submissions to Refounding Labour?

• Candidate contracts to ensure all candidates campaign effectively.

Shorthand for more robotic politics

• Major investment in training activists and office holders.

Code for more robotic activism

• Investment in a new online platform to transform membersnet.

Aagh, no - having wasted millions already, can the Labour Party really afford another IT fiasco?

I’m really proud as an NEC member of this package of changes. I hope delegates will enthusiastically support them at conference.

As a former NEC member I'm ashamed of this package of changes. I hope delegates will vote over whelmingly to remit, pending publication of all submissions and an opportunity for further reflection. As set out none of these changes is likely to halt a resumption of a further decline in membership now evident in the latest membership data.

Refounding Labour: a SADD case - serious accountability deficiency disorder

Is there any such thing as a perfect crime? Reading m'Lord Collins's letter to Labour Party members published yesterday here about Refounding Labour had me wondering. Here was the outgoing general secretary of the Labour Party proclaiming the outcomes of a controversial consultation, declining to offer any details, that will consolidate a command and control model of politics for another generation.

His letter is littered with clues. The mere fact that it was written a week before Labour's Annual Conference will be enough for some. Then consider who it was written to - individual members. How are they going to be able to convene, consider and decide how to mandate their elected representative to Conference in the coming week? The answer, even for the e-literate is only with extreme difficulty. Describing how it's possible is the subject for another blog. For me, possibly the most telling utterence was m'Lord's statement on changes to the procedure for selecting the Shadow Cabinet:

Rights and responsibilities of the party leader will be defined for the first time, including control over appointments to the Shadow Cabinet. [my bold]

This could be an important clue. Anti-democratic behaviour is now so deeply engrained in the Labour Party that our elected representatives are brazen about their entitlements. Our society is suffering a pandemic of ADD - Accountability Deficit Disorder. The political class has the most acute form: SADD - Serious Accountability Deficit Disorder. That condition arises from it having been exposed to prolonged right-wing media influences promoting intense fear and distorted vision, a fixation on neo-liberal thinking to the detriment of the hapless majority. Labour's Refounding Labour 'consultation' is a case in point.

The circumstances leading up to a decision by Labour's newly elected Leader Ed Miliband to want to be able to appoint his Shadow Cabinet reflect the construction of Labour's electoral college, the outcome of the leadership election last autumn, and doubts about the loyalties possibly of a majority of Labour elected representatives in the House of Commons. In plain language, they couldn't be trusted to elect a Shadow Cabinet loyal to the Leader. This cascades down through stripping out local government committees to an 'anything goes approach' to local party organisation that tolerates 'family and friends' command and control without question. As for candidate selection: incumbency rules.

As currently constituted, the Labour Party remains the creature of that section of the political class that believes in my Leader right or wrong - a communion of Latter Day Royalists aka Blairites. Public distrust of politicians is still on the rise as evidenced last week with the publication of fresh data by the Committee on Standards in Public Life. That trend can only be reversed with a dramatic change in behaviour. 

The clue to Refounding Labour is on every member's party card. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. So there is a simple test that could be applied to all the proposed rule changes still being kept under wraps by Labour's high command - does this change make the party more democratic and or socialist or not?

Much will depend on the role of the trade union representatives on Labour's National Executive Committee which has its Pre-Conference meeting in two days time on Tuesday 20 September. Are they ready to herald that needed shift to a more democratic party that will help membership recruitment and retention, and persuade Ed Miliband he has nothing to lose politically by enabling members a proper say in the future direction of the Labour Party?

Until the actual rule changes are published, it is genuinely difficult to be sure. But I wrote to Peter Hain the week before last with a copy of a resolution passed unanimously by the City of London Labour Party calling for publication of the submissions and a period of reflection leading to a special conference on Refounding Labour in the spring.

He replied:

Sorry we simply don't agree because I thought you like me want reforms to empower grass roots members and turn Labour from an obsolete Party like our rivals into a popular movement relevant to today's politics. That's what RF aims to do and you can help make it happen.

Here's an extract from my response:

There is nothing in the current rule book that prevents our local party getting on with campaigning or fundraising or reaching out into our local community, which it does.

 

This is done in the main despite Labour Party Head Office and the London Labour Party.

So there's another test: What difference will these unseen rule changes make? If they reduce accountability, they should be rejected out of hand by the NEC. A named vote would be helpful. Don't suppose there's a rule for that in the proposed package?

 

Labour Party Conference 2011 remains shrouded - only a week to go

'Twas famously said by former Labour Party leader Harold Wilson that "a week is a long time in politics". If only.The prospects for Annual Conference 2011 in Liverpool are not auspicious. No one outside a hazy inner circle has a clue what is to be debated and how. Some members are cross. Others have an endearing trust in the leadership, and their elected representatives in Parliament, or on the Party's National Executive Committee and the Conference Arrangements Committee.

In the last 24 hours, NEC constituency party representative Johanna Baxter who twitters @JohannaBaxter told her followers in response to questions, including one from me:

@PeterKenyon @mr_onionspressed @Ed_Miliband wed re com of props.Org agreed yest 2 com agreements made @ that mtg.Mail 2go2 CLPs tom re this

That means CLP secretaries should get a briefing today (Saturday).

This followed her representations to Party leader Ed Miliband on Wednesday evening which she reported on her Twitter site the following day after the NEC's Organisation Committee (aka as Org Sub):

Plsd that #nec OrgSub agreed w/ my sugg 2 @Ed_Miliband last nite that we communicate 2 CLPs asap those @RefoundLab props we cld agree 2day

So far so good. However, Ed himself promised publication of submissions to the Refounding Labour consultation back in mid-July. He has been ignored. Of course, that is not how it is being reported by Head Office. It cites staff shortages, technical difficulties. But the truth is there are staff employed by the Party who think they are the Party, and who to date have proved performance-management proof.

Similarly, policy making is as much a mystery. The deadline for submission of Contemporary Resolutions passed yesterday. Why haven't they been published? The official line is that haven't been considered by the Conference Arrangements Committee to establish whether they are 'in order'. Nod, nod, wink, wink - the criteria are so convoluted they make Spaghetti Junction look like a Roman Road. Their purpose - to minimise the risk of embarrassment to the Leadership.

As I asked in my previous blog, "Why would anyone want to join such an organisation?" That's the challenge for Labour's party managers over the next week - to transform the Conference into an event that reverses declining party membership.

In that regard, the Labour Democratic Network (LDN)'s Manchester Declaration sets out a vision of how the Labour Party can become a mass membership party, despite the naysayers agonising over declining political party membership across the so-called established democratic world. That is hardly surprising given the almost universal contempt of politicians for any effective form of accountability, and the corrosive influence of state-funding of political parties.

The basic unit of party organisation for LDN members is the electoral ward. About which there is much to say, but not just now.

Where's that HO briefing about the decisions taken at Org Sub?

UPDATE Email received at 1338 just read - I suspect it's code for more command and control, without sight of the rule changes it poses more questions that it answers. 

To all members

Dear Peter

As you know, final recommendations arising from the Refounding Labour consultation will be going to the NEC next Tuesday, ahead of consideration by the Annual Conference in Liverpool.

Peter Hain promised to keep you up to date with developments and wanted me to provide you with a summary of the some of the recommendations agreed by the recent Organisation Committee, and which will be discussed by the NEC next Tuesday.

The Committee is acutely aware that delegates will be receiving the final recommendations for consideration quite close to Conference, and was therefore keen for these initial conclusions to be communicated now.

The Committee agreed in principle that rules changes will be proposed in the following areas:

Purpose and objects

• Clause I concerning the party's objects will be updated, giving greater emphasis to Labour's role in local communities.

Rights and responsibilities 

• Rights and responsibilities of the party leader will be defined for the first time, including control over appointments to the Shadow Cabinet.
• Rights and responsibilities of Labour candidates and elected representatives will be defined, and provisions made for the use of model contracts.
• Rights and responsibilities of elected members of the Parliamentary Labour Party will be defined, including the right to be consulted on any positions taken by the leadership in the context of a hung Parliament.
• The ALC subscription will be abolished and councillors will instead, in line with other Labour representatives, pay a 2 per cent levy on total income arising from their elected role.

Enabling structures

• Local Government Committees will be replaced by Local Campaign Forums (LCF), which will allow for local adaptation and different models of structure and membership. LCFs may apply to the NEC to pilot new and innovative procedures for selections. CLPs will be free to adopt different models of organisation to suit local circumstances, with certain common features, to allow joint working across constituency and geographical boundaries. There will be a new model of CLP finances to help redistribute resources more equally, and lift struggling CLPs out of debt.

Encouraging recruitment

• The minimum age for becoming an individual member of the party will be lowered from 15 to 14 years old. There will be a lower local join rate for new members, to encourage recruitment.

Policy making

• We will open up the process to ensure a greater voice for members in a system that is more transparent and accountable, and which reaches out to the public. We will create a process that ensures the voices of young members, women, BAME, disabled, LGBT and other under-represented members are heard in policy development. One representative from Labour International will be added to the membership of the NPF; and a textual omission regarding the Northern Ireland CLP, which already has one representative, will be corrected.

A bigger voice for councillors

• The Leader of the LGA shall have the right to attend meetings of the political Shadow Cabinet when in opposition and the political Cabinet when in government. There will be better services provided for our councillors with a new website and enhanced online facilities, more training, design support for templates, and increased support for all Labour groups, large and small.

 

Full details of the actual textual rule book changes arising from these points will be sent to you as soon as the NEC has agreed the final recommendations to be put to Conference. The above recommendations do not represent the full extent of the changes likely to be proposed from Refounding Labour, and further issues are currently under consideration.

In addition, a number of reforms that do not require rule changes, such as new and improved technology for communication across the party, will also be proposed as part of the overall Refounding Labour package, and we will endeavour to ensure that you receive details of the final recommendations as soon as possible.

I hope this information is helpful and I will be in touch with further updates in due course.

Yours sincerely

 

 

Ray Collins

General Secretary

 

 

Labour's fixers meet: Will membership rise?

The Labour Party's Org Sub - a overly large subcommittee of an even larger 33-member National Executive Committee (NEC) meets today to consider a fix for Refounding Labour - a poorly designed and badly researched consultation the results which are being kept secret even from the NEC.

Why would anyone want to join such an organisation?

Why has Refounding Labour been reduced to sharing out subs differently?

Calm down everyone, it's only the party conference season. Cynics are being urged to pipe down by voices of reason. My Twitter stream @PeterKenyon is littered with endorsements for LabourList editor Mark Ferguson's Ed needs to take the Party with him on party reform, and Johanna Baxter's Refounding Labour Update. I appreciate their efforts to remain positive. But the facts point to a smokescreen being laid for proposals to erode already seriously diminished Labour Party members' rights even further.

Johanna Baxter writes:

the debate has moved on in many areas since the document was drafted, specifically for example in respect of membership rates and funding for CLPs

This confirms the drift to a tangiable issue even though it may not have been the central thrust of contributions to the Refounding Labour consultation. The issue of membership subs and their distribution was first flagged up on 10 August by doyen of the NEC CLP representatives Ann Black on Labour List here, quickly followed by an eMail from fellow NEC CLP representative Ellie Reeves.

Ann Black revealed:

It is proposed that first, all national debts incurred up to 2010 would be written off, so that every CLP would start with a clean slate. Second, a higher proportion of membership income would be retained centrally.

All CLP members should be aware that buried in the propsed package is a plan to enable Labour supporters to become cut-price members with some voting rights - begging the question of why bother to be a member?

Personally, like Ann I think there is a case for reforming the allocation of membership subs from head office. But what is on offer is a top down financial settlement, when the real issues IMHO are about local organisational capacity. If Labour really does want to reach out into the community it has to develop the capacity to do so, and that must include local fundraising and accounting capacity. To date there is no evidence that that issue is being taken seriously by our leader, Ed Miliband.