Labour Party Conference - Grassroots Success
Despite all the stage management by the New Labour machine, reality did begin to break through in to the Labour Party Conference both in the fringe meetings at the Conference and also even on to the Conference floor. There's been a lot written about the techniques developed by New Labour to control the Conference as a media event which I don't need to repeat here. However even I am quite surprised at the lengths to which the New Labour bureaucracy has gone to seek to prevent any real debate on policy issues. It isn't just the intensive briefing of delegates on which way they're supposed to vote by full-time Labour Party officials or strategically placed members of staff to organise clapping and standing ovations, or even the handing out of hand-written placards by Labour Party apparatchiks. The worse, I suppose, is the delusion that they have that somehow this will prevent the issues being debated and the concerns of Labour Party members about the direction of the Government ever being expressed.
Instead, what occurred this week was the defeat of the Government on the Conference floor on a number of key issues such as health service privatisation, council housing and corporate manslaughter legislation. Outside the Conference chamber the real debate took place where party members and trade unionists couldn't express themselves on the Conference floor. They simply transposed their expression of views in to the fringe meetings. At fringe meeting after fringe meeting it was demonstrated that there is a widespread coalition now for change in direction for the Labour Government. Clear calls were made for a series of changes in Government policy, including ending privatisation, the need to introduce a Trade Union Freedom Bill, the importance of having a real debate about Trident, and withdrawal from Iraq.
So, looking back on Conference week, it's encouraging to report that whenever a vote was allowed on the Conference floor, the Labour Party Conference endorsed key elements of the policy programme upon which I am standing for leader of the party. On the issues where New Labour refused to allow a debate, it was clear from the many packed fringe meetings on these subjects that there is majority rank-and-file support in both the Constituency Labour Parties and trade unions for the policies we are advocating as part of this campaign. So, I have come back from Manchester significantly encouraged that there is a massive basis for support for our campaign, its policies and for our leadership bid.
The whole week was one frenetic series of fringe meetings which I attended and spoke at. This enabled us not just to gage support for these policies, but also get real feedback on the details of policies and how we drive them forward as part of this campaign. People were buzzing with ideas, both about the detail of policy but also about organising the campaign in their communities and in their unions. The Conference has given our campaign a major boost. Of course it's a continuing struggle to gain a breakthrough into the national press, but our effective use of live media this week has given us the opportunity of explaining our policies to a wider audience.
Naturally I try to speak from the Conference platform - but, unsurprisingly, was never called to speak. I was hoping to speak in the debate on the privatisation of the NHS, but was denied the opportunity. In fact the only time allocated to speakers called from the floor in a combined debate on the NHS and education was approximately 15 minutes. Although I was unable to speak on the subject of NHS privatisation, I set out my views on this issue at the LRC/Campaign Group fringe on Wednesday evening. You can see my speech at the Guardian: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_mcdonnell/2006/09/post_446.html
The New Labour hierarchy including many Labour MPs and the London-based media still have no understanding of what we're about and the nature of our campaign. We have rejected the traditional path followed by political campaigns in the past for seeking position within Government or a political party. The traditional route is for a small group of MPs to come together and select a candidate between themselves, to determine their own programme of policies and to launch a campaign from a Westminster committee room and invite and cajole other MPs to support them, virtually excluding party members and supporters. So, a fait accompli determines and restricts to a narrow range of candidates - MPs basically telling us who we can vote for. Our campaign has virtually reversed this process. Rank-and-file members of the Labour Party and trade unions have determined that we should have a challenge for the leadership, have proposed a policy programme and have offered a leadership candidate for support. On this basis our campaign flies in the face of all those traditional processes and challenges the very structures of decision-making and power within our party and within the political system. You can see now why they have no idea where we're coming from, what we're about or any understanding of the process we are using. In my view, this lack of understanding leads them to completely underestimating the demands for change within our movement and also the massive potential support for our campaign.
Instead, what occurred this week was the defeat of the Government on the Conference floor on a number of key issues such as health service privatisation, council housing and corporate manslaughter legislation. Outside the Conference chamber the real debate took place where party members and trade unionists couldn't express themselves on the Conference floor. They simply transposed their expression of views in to the fringe meetings. At fringe meeting after fringe meeting it was demonstrated that there is a widespread coalition now for change in direction for the Labour Government. Clear calls were made for a series of changes in Government policy, including ending privatisation, the need to introduce a Trade Union Freedom Bill, the importance of having a real debate about Trident, and withdrawal from Iraq.
So, looking back on Conference week, it's encouraging to report that whenever a vote was allowed on the Conference floor, the Labour Party Conference endorsed key elements of the policy programme upon which I am standing for leader of the party. On the issues where New Labour refused to allow a debate, it was clear from the many packed fringe meetings on these subjects that there is majority rank-and-file support in both the Constituency Labour Parties and trade unions for the policies we are advocating as part of this campaign. So, I have come back from Manchester significantly encouraged that there is a massive basis for support for our campaign, its policies and for our leadership bid.
The whole week was one frenetic series of fringe meetings which I attended and spoke at. This enabled us not just to gage support for these policies, but also get real feedback on the details of policies and how we drive them forward as part of this campaign. People were buzzing with ideas, both about the detail of policy but also about organising the campaign in their communities and in their unions. The Conference has given our campaign a major boost. Of course it's a continuing struggle to gain a breakthrough into the national press, but our effective use of live media this week has given us the opportunity of explaining our policies to a wider audience.
Naturally I try to speak from the Conference platform - but, unsurprisingly, was never called to speak. I was hoping to speak in the debate on the privatisation of the NHS, but was denied the opportunity. In fact the only time allocated to speakers called from the floor in a combined debate on the NHS and education was approximately 15 minutes. Although I was unable to speak on the subject of NHS privatisation, I set out my views on this issue at the LRC/Campaign Group fringe on Wednesday evening. You can see my speech at the Guardian: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/john_mcdonnell/2006/09/post_446.html
The New Labour hierarchy including many Labour MPs and the London-based media still have no understanding of what we're about and the nature of our campaign. We have rejected the traditional path followed by political campaigns in the past for seeking position within Government or a political party. The traditional route is for a small group of MPs to come together and select a candidate between themselves, to determine their own programme of policies and to launch a campaign from a Westminster committee room and invite and cajole other MPs to support them, virtually excluding party members and supporters. So, a fait accompli determines and restricts to a narrow range of candidates - MPs basically telling us who we can vote for. Our campaign has virtually reversed this process. Rank-and-file members of the Labour Party and trade unions have determined that we should have a challenge for the leadership, have proposed a policy programme and have offered a leadership candidate for support. On this basis our campaign flies in the face of all those traditional processes and challenges the very structures of decision-making and power within our party and within the political system. You can see now why they have no idea where we're coming from, what we're about or any understanding of the process we are using. In my view, this lack of understanding leads them to completely underestimating the demands for change within our movement and also the massive potential support for our campaign.
posted by John at 1:24 PM
12 Comments:
you could try going on Jonathan Ross aka David Cameron, dunno about HIGNFY after what happened to Charles Kennedy recently though!
Hi - rather interesting thing, courtesy of "Labourhome", here.
The idea is you try to second guess MPs nominations/votes and then your vote is registered too (if you're a member and/or a member of an affiliated union. Obviously, as polls go, it's flawed in various ways, but still could be worth a look...
John - off this topic a bit, but how far through it the Trade Union Freedom Bill - like where is it up to?
I was particularly angry when the mike was switched off during Dave Prentis' speech as I had just heard it at the UNISON lunchtime fringe preceding the health and edication debated where he, Derek Simpson of AMICUS< Tony Woodley of the T&G, someone from GMB and Billy Hayes form CWU had all spoken out in unison against the NHS privatisation and explained the terrible effects, to a background of noise from the pensioners demo. Harriet Harman was in the UNISON audience and the meeting was packed, the party staff got the wind up I know as I and some people from the electoral reform society were stopped form lefaleting as techically it's not allowed in the compound but later on I saw others allowed to do it even further in in the GMEX hall itself which doesen't seen just does it. I was pinning my hopes on John being allowed to speak soon after Dave to explain to the wider world exactly why we need to get rid of this New Labour elite that have hijacked the party and all internal democracy when they took over by means of a coux -it's an obvious point that if we are to campaign for emocracy in other parts of the world we need to start with ourselves - and if anyone is still in any doubt of the incompetence of the leadership and the cruel effects of the extreme privatisations - worse than Thatcherism now_ they only needed to hear Mark Serwotka of PCS (civil service union) at the Briefing fringe whogave the example of a woman who had to do an iq test for her work as it had been privatised - like when they make people re-apply for their own jobs - the iq test came up two days after the woman had given birth - instead of postponing it till later as any normal manager would do, they said they would provide childcare! This is so obviously against the womna's maternity leave rights, health and safety rights, employment rights, breastfeeding rights, the child and her's human rights and so on and she was probaably in too much pain to leave her bed anyway (I have two children so I speak from esperience).... and so on, words absolutely fail me. These people are incomptetent as well as immoral....the Ministers who are authorising these sort of workibg conditions through these extreme privatisations under the mantra of "what works", the third way teminology should be told quite clearlyh by us that their ideas DON'T WORK and we don't want them!! And anyone whpo thinks that New Labour are good managers only needs to read the press reports of the fiasco at the late accrediatation pass office where MPs, trade union and constituency delegates let alone speakers at fringe events and general visitors including the disabled and people with young children couldn't get a pass for anything up to five days (in the case of ASLEF delgates, most of whom gave up and went home as they didn''t get in till Weds), I was an official CLP delegate but didn't get in till Gordon Brown's speech two days later, thus missing the priorites ballot and the other important votes on behalf of my CLP as my hollowed out CLP had sent the original paperwork in late although once I got to late accred it was treated as a new app anyway although I notice they had kept the original chq which I had stayed up all night looking for as they had returned my original application 48 hours before the conference. The party stewards had thousands of people to deal with and did their best, the delay was apparently due to the outsourced police check, but they should have prioritised MPs and delegates etc in the queue instead of lunmpoing them in together with people who wre not supposed to be speaking or voting and who just wanted to look round the exhibition for a day or two! Another reason why the Blairites get everything they want through on the nod unless a policy is trade union backed is that they are effectively blocking many delegates from even attending! I notice I didn't get a visitor's application automatically this year as I am on their mailing lists (I was originally going to be a visitor but then became a voting delegate due to being moved to a different CLP becaue of the boundary changes) a difference the press would do well to explain when they talk of delegates to the party conferences) when I rang hq to ask for a visitor's form they seemed to think I wanted a corporate pass, I had to explain that I was just a party member who wanted to apply to attend as a visitor! When I finally had my pass approved on the Sun morning at conference after spending all Sat in teh late accred office - after lunch time the food and tea etc ran out and there was only water, I left at seven thirty and only managed to get the last of the soup for lunch, it was in a college which had a small canteen and people got nothing all day)I was then told I was in a queue of hundreds including corporate people and visitors etc to get a pass actually made up and printed! and that they would text me as they had said about the police check. I couldn't wait that long so I had to go back to the supervisior who knew I should have been in the hall and kindly did my pass there and then but I also had to send her two MPS, one MPs assistant, an MP needing a pass for his wife and a disabled person and so these applications were taken ahead of the q to advoid complaints but only because we effectivley had to push in but all my pleas for them to send MPs to one counter, delegates to the other etc (there were four counters) fell on deaf ears and they continued to do them in order of arrival despite the fact that on Sunday I had been taken round to the back door and thus straight to the counters as I was a delegate. Even the media had to wait up to an hour just to pick up their pre-cleared passes.
Another of the debates or rather monologues I enjoyed when I did get my pass was the one where they announced "voluntary redundancies" amongst party staff due to their own financial mismanagment of which much has beenm written elsewhere but we were told it was ok as they had a nice recovery plan in place and as usual they were " dealing with it".
The phrase that these people could not organise something in a brewery comes to mind and I don't like the way they casualise everything from redundancies to Walter's experience lst year by making false and sycophantic sounding apologies and then trying to pass the whole matters off as hilarious jokes, in very bad taste I'd say and shame on them as I shouted from the floor several times although all these bits are cunnigly editied out of BBC Parliament and other media coverage, I don't think the Prentice wipeout has been shown properly form what I've heard and seen and yet there was so much noise when we all shouted to let him speak and UNISON waved their placards that it should have got the same coverage as the RMT walkout during Blair's speech at the TUC did. In fact I was so carried away that I actually started to heckle the seconder by mistake I think I thought they had abandoned all proper procedure and replaced him by a Blairite speaker in the back of my mind before anyone slags me off for this anymore! I was very angry though as they didn't let John speak especially as Dave P was cut off as well and because he is a leadrship candidate for God's sake and his speech as detailed on the Guardian wesite see above link needed to be heard to counter the BLairite argument. I also had a few examples and points I'd like to have made and for me to even get there in the first place had involved extensive childcare negotiations with three different members of my family, I was on the phone all morning to region who tried to deny me a pass while I needed the time I had set aside to express more milk for the baby I was leaving at home (I can't do after school orlater on with a fiver year old jumping on my head..!) (the creche would have been too difficult as it dosen't do evenings and I don't have family near Manchester but I did use the TUC one, another thing the party staff are notdoing is advertising the creche properly, anyone can use it though I think MP's and delegates kids get prioirity of there's a queue but they don't put on the mail-outs or websites that it's availble you have to ring them to ask for a form, it's free as well apart from a £50 deposit they will keep if you cancel past the creche deadline of about three weeksbefore conference, there would be more delegates able to represnt the views of parents if this facility was properly utilised and advertised).
We must all keep up with complaining about the media blackout, although it was better last week I spoke to Paxo about it and he was just dimissive. Oh well perhaps the undreground/grassroots campaign will reach up and take him by surprise in the end! We should produce an alternative guide to attending confereces next year, I mean the excellent CPLD (Pete Willsman's ) guide tells you all you need to know to vote etc as a delegate and get round some of the current stitch ups, submit rule changes etc (though they can only be doen a year in advance hence the slow progress in dealing with the lack of democracy we currenty have, how to submit the sort of motions that won't get ruled out of order although this year EVERYTHING was ruled out of order by the leadership anyway! so my vote in the Priorities ballot wouldn't have mattered.. and so on and so forth. As John says the real conference is on the fringe anyway and obviously I heard all of it but what worries me is that the man on the street dosen't and still thinks that Brown is a good idea, is different from Blair, the left is unelectable and all those other fallacies... no one is unelectable, look at facism in the second world war! I hope it was a blessing in disguise that conference and the delegates were so totally gagged and that in the future we will be able to look back on it and see how like Stalinist Russia is was...smoke filled rooms dosen't come into it! They are even talking of five and ten year plans - when I studied Soviet politics I came the conclusion that ten year plans never worked whatever their ideology as events always get in the as it's too far ahead to predict. So let's hope the Blairite scorched earth policy of frankly Thatcherite reforms hits the buffers soon - did you see the Independent Ad on phone boxes where Blair is turning into Thatcher... I would write this grammatically if I had time but I haven't as I am looking after a baby as well!
A lot of people I speak to have given up and are saying that we need to lose an election before we come to our senses and reform - let's not allow that to happen by getting our campaign out there, o the street and in the media!
Just to explain when Dave had his mike switched off he had every reason to be pissed off but it was a genuine mistake and not some kind of nu labour stitch up. Gary had told Dave several times to wind things up and because Gary's mike wasn't working properly Dave hadn't heard.
Also I saw Serwotka at that fringe and the man is very silly indeed. PCS really need to elect a kind of moderate Prentis style consensual figure. Do you honestly think that the majority of PCS members are trotskyists which is what he is. How much has he done to defend his members? Not much because he is the kind of person that would rather go on strike than actually work through a problem. As gen sec of the PCS he shouldn't be that political anyway.
"Do you honestly think that the majority of PCS members are trotskyists which is what he is."
A majority of PCS members elected him though.
"How much has he done to defend his members?"
The back-down on pensions from the Government is the first thing that springs to mind.
Prentis has been neither use nor ornament as far as I have seen.
A Shop Steward
Good blog John, but your posts are waaay too long as, are some of the comments.
Keep up the good work though.....
Dear Copper Spoon,
I presume you would like a blog of soundbites? Preferably, about the first two topics in your interest list?
:-)
No, the backdown on pensions was due to the good work by Dave Prentis and comrades in UNISON.
Different pension scheme.
The successful PCS campaign was last year.
The LGPS campaign led by Prentis et al of this year is still not resolved.
Dear Curlew
I think, in the interest of his leadership ambition, John should leave blogs on those subjects to me. :)
the person who criticised Mark Serwotka obviously has no idea what really goes on in the real world of the blackest holes of the public sector and how desparate the conditions for the workforce there can be and how despite this the staff have to pick up the pieces when they deal with very damaged people on the fringes of society with all the stress that entials and then they are hindered at every term by moronic government policies affecting not just their conditions but their efforts to do their jobs properly because the policy wonks we've got under New Labour and many of the public sector managers will not listen to the suggestions their own frontline staff make to improve things, partly because of the unrealistic targets they are trying to get the staff to fulfill...Mark is the best leaders that PCS has ever had and anyone who can't see that must be very narrow-minded and tunnel-visioned in my humble opinion.
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