Have just about recovered from a long day yesterday down to London and back for the Compass conference where the lrc/Labour Briefing had a packed fringe meeting. with speakers John McDonnell and economist Graham Turner, who ariculately and impressively argued the left case against the cuts..
Compass, along with the Fabians, LRC and Save The Labour Party organised a massive e-mail campaign to ask the Party leadership to enable all six declared candidates to stand.
In the event, the only reason there were five was because one candidate stood down and there was then the shambolic sight of last-minute horse-trading which had nothing at all to do with Party democracy - and everything to do with face-saving amid the prospect of four fortysomething male candidates with very similar policy ideas.
We are better off with five than four - but it should have been the case that Party members were not effectively vetoed by the PLP. And it must never happen again.
My guess is the rules will indeed be looked at - and that will happen because of the grassroots campaign which made it clear what loyal Labour Party people wanted.
What is rather sad in all this is that only two members of the NEC put pressure on to change the nomination threshold . They were Peter Kenyon and Christine Shawcroft (pictured with me at last year's briefing AGM)
It is my belief that it is the job of all six constituency representatives to act in the interests of ordinary members. Which is why I am standing for the NEC.
Two years ago, my constituency, Calder Valley, did its level best to get that threshold changed at Labour Party Conference. We failed because we were not backed by the big unions. One hopes they have now changed their view. And that the overwhelming call for an end to the stifling of Party democracy which tarnished the Blair years will now be supported by whoever is the new Leader.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
STANDING UP FOR THE GRASSROOTS....
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9 comments:
Yes, the rules really do need changing, and we must ensure people don't forget what's happened here. We've had an 18th Brumaire moment here, in that history repeated itself, the first time as tragedy (the Brown coronation) and now as farce (one of the many reasons I would like Diane Abbott to win - albeit she wasn't my preferred candidate - is the priceless look it would bring to David Miliband's face...)
It will be all to easy for people to look back on 2010 and think: 5 candidates on the ballot paper, including a Socialist Campaign Group MP, the system works! The system does not work: it is an absurd scenario when it took days and days of lobbying (ironically on behalf of the one candidate not to to make it onto the ballot) to enable the "get them all on the ballot" argument to reach common currency, and then it took the preferred (at the time, both in parliament and out) left-wing candidate pulling out and a deluge of last-minute nominations to get a woman onto the ballot paper.
People need to rally around Diane's campaign and fight the election at the moment, but after that we need to come back to this and not forget. Our leadership election procedure is broken.
The first thing we can do is make sure we have people on the NEC who will back us on these questions: so Susan, Peter and Christine have earned our support. There are some definite questions about a couple of the others.
Yes, the rules really do need changing, and we must ensure people don't forget what's happened here. We've had an 18th Brumaire moment here, in that history repeated itself, the first time as tragedy (the Brown coronation) and now as farce (one of the many reasons I would like Diane Abbott to win - albeit she wasn't my preferred candidate - is the priceless look it would bring to David Miliband's face...)
It will be all to easy for people to look back on 2010 and think: 5 candidates on the ballot paper, including a Socialist Campaign Group MP, the system works! The system does not work: it is an absurd scenario when it took days and days of lobbying (ironically on behalf of the one candidate not to to make it onto the ballot) to enable the "get them all on the ballot" argument to reach common currency, and then it took the preferred (at the time, both in parliament and out) left-wing candidate pulling out and a deluge of last-minute nominations to get a woman onto the ballot paper.
People need to rally around Diane's campaign and fight the election at the moment, but after that we need to come back to this and not forget. Our leadership election procedure is broken.
The first thing we can do is make sure we have people on the NEC who will back us on these questions: so Susan, Peter and Christine have earned our support. There are some definite questions about a couple of the others.
So, what happens if a leader is elected and that leader has no support in the PLP?
Its a recipe for disaster as we saw with the Tories and IDS.
I think you are going to have to look for an answer to that - extending democracy alone isn't necessarily enough
The answer is to restore the five per cent threshold - which would hve seen all six on the ballot
I suppose the issue is then going to be whether this represents broad enough support or not?
On that number even Frank Field or Kate Hoey would have been able to find enough nominees!
It may be a case of re-establishing principles - I get the impression that some don't really think that it matters whether the PLP have confidence in the leader or not. It reminds me of a lot of the arguments of the 80's when I generally didn't agree with the left position because I thought it marginalised the reality of the role of the leader as heading the PLP.
But Mike, neither Frank Field nor Kate Hoey would have won in the electoral college. I don't think they would have got nominated actually, but if they were - would it really matter? Their views would be tested in the electoral collge, but also they might indeed have things to add to the debate, even if it were just to clarify why they were wrong!
I can see the argument that there should be a "testing" threshold to nominate when there's no vacancy - to prevent regular "stalking horse" challanges; but the electoral college already gives plenty of "cover" for the PLP, without the nomination stage. Really what difference would it make if the 95% of the PLP hated the winner, rather than 87.5%? The winner would have to do reasonably well in the PLP section of the college, at least on second or third preferences, to stand a chance of winning.
Thing is, Duncan, that isn't statistically true. I do understand what you are saying and why, but I can also understand the need to have a PLP leader with the confidence of the MP's.
The MP's have always been more to the right than activists, overall, and I think that is largely because
1) many safe Labour areas aren't necessarily strongly left Labour.
2) many safe Tory seats have ragingly left wing local Labour parties
As a result the cohort of MP's is always further to the right, though I think that was exacerbated in the NL years.
I still think that there is something of a fear of what happened in the early 80's and a reluctance to return to it
Mike, I understand the importance of PLP support, but the problem is that any leader voted for by the rank and file will have the support of the grassroots. Is it too much to ask for some PLP members to hold their noses and back the leader, given that that's what a large proportion of the rank and file have been doing for years? Or should we accept the status quo that tells us the rank and file can @#$% themselves, we'll only get the candidates the current clique wants?
But that just isn't reflecting the reality of the job of Labour leader. Primarily, they are leader of the party in parliament and the prospective Prime Minister. So I do think that whoever the person is absolutely has to have the confidence of MP's, or it just wouldn't work.
Its the Labour MP's who will form the next Labour government, and I just don't think labelling them all as 'the current clique' necessarily helps
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