From Comment is Free:
I read Peter Hain's article yesterday on Cif and thought "God has it really come to this!" I admit to feeling anger but more so an immense personal sadness that someone who was such a fine radical as Peter had come to resort to such self-serving sophistry. Arthur Koestler's novel Darkness at Noon came to mind. The next steps on from this craven performance of justifying the leader's every contortion are confessions of guilt for crimes against the party and show trials.
Why such anger? Well, because so much is at stake - the last vestiges of democracy in a once great party that was founded to give democratic voice to those that were powerless and had no voice.
It may sound corny in a cynical age but literally generations of our people have given much of their lives to establishing and cherishing the Labour party because they believed what the party told them when they joined. When they received their party card every member, no matter how humble a position they held in the party, gained the right to attend their local party or trade union branch and seek to convince their fellow members to adopt a particular policy. If successful this policy could be pursued all the way to the party's annual conference with the aim of influencing the agenda of Labour in government.
Of course this process can look messy and at times is rumbustious, which appears to offend Peter Hain's sensibilities, but that is what healthy democracy looks like whether it's in the House of Commons or the conference hall.
Gordon Brown's proposals, set out in his Orwellian-titled document Extending and Renewing Democracy, remove this basic right of party members and trade unionists at party conference to determine the party's policy position on key issues of the day. Instead the delegates attending the conference will only be allowed to raise issues to be referred for subsequent consideration by the arcane centrally controlled structures of party policy forums, commissions and working parties.
Why is this being proposed? Partly it stems from a statement Gordon Brown made to trade union leaders last year when discussions were taking place over the need for legislation on trade union rights. At that stage it was made clear that if there was no movement by the government, the campaign for the restoration of basic trade union rights would inevitably spill onto to the floor of Labour party conference. Worryingly to some of us at the time, Gordon Brown responded by saying that under his leadership we can't have Labour party conference defeating a Labour leader in office on policy issues.
So this is not about in Peter Hain's consultancy-speak "engaging with the challenges that a responsible party of government must resolve" or "New Politics". It is straightforwardly the old question whether a Labour leader is accountable to the Labour party.
In recent years, one of the reasons for the exodus of members from the Labour party has been the implementation of policies to which many party members have not only been opposed but also have had no valid opportunity to have a say over and have been unable to hold the Labour leadership to account.
The ability of Labour party conference to decide by resolution the policy of the party on a number of key questions meant that at least there still remained some opportunity for members to participate in a process of direct democracy.
If allowed, democracy does actually work. The message to Gordon Brown is give democracy a chance and trust our members. Instead of trying to bounce the party into adopting these proposals next week when there has been virtually no time for a realistic consultation, I urge him to compromise and allow a proper consultation, a thorough debate and democratic decision making process, bringing a real democratic reform programme to next year's conference which will hold the party together. Please don't use this issue as some publicity stunt "Clause 4" moment.
If Gordon Brown obstinately refuses this compromise and forces his proposals through, could the last Labour party delegate leaving the Bournemouth conference hall turn off the lights please, they will be the lights of democracy.
posted by John at 4:15 PM | permalink | 
17 Comments:
"If Gordon Brown obstinately refuses this compromise and forces his proposals through, could the last Labour party delegate leaving the Bournemouth conference hall turn off the lights please, they will be the lights of democracy."
I would at this juncture like to point out to you Mr McDonnell in order to "turn off the lights" of "democracy" in the "Labour party" the lights would have had to be on in the first place. There was to be trueful a slight flicker around the time of Attlee's government but it soon went out again.
"We should be very afraid of Gordon Brown"...
"Universities are not companies, and only academics should run them, but Brown – bizarrely – distrusts public servants, and trusts only business people. Brown's metrication of the RAE, for example, or his assaults on Oxford over the Laura Spence affair, shows how he distrusts the judgements of scholars. Once in No 10 he'll do to academics what he did to the NHS professionals; he'll hand us over to a vicious regime of targets, accountants and faux business practices."
"Brown respects only business people and the City, and he treats public servants as public serfs. Soon we will be sighing for the glory days of Tony Blair."
http://tinyurl.com/24ko66
http://education.independent.co.uk/higher/article2683124.ece
"Soon we will be sighing for the glory days of Tony Blair."
What days were they?.
Off topic but you have got to see this.
President Bush Pardons himself from War Crimes...
http://tinyurl.com/2gzthc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGnaSN5Twq8
Iwish you all luck and I like your blog....I feel we share sufficient common ground for a link to each others blogs to be mutually beneficial.If you agree to link then please contact me at 'An Unrepentant Communist'
http://unrepentantcommunist.blogspot.com/
on the commments page of the current post,and I will immediately link your blog to mine.Looking forward to hearing from you.
Gabriel in County Kerry Ireland
"Union leaders backed away from a showdown with Gordon Brown because they did not want to ruin his first Labour conference as leader, it has emerged.
Unions had been expected to clash with Mr Brown over controversial changes to conference voting rules."
"But Derek Simpson, joint leader of the UK's biggest union Unite, said they had wanted to avoid "a bloodbath"."
"Unison leader Dave Prentis said the most important thing was for the unions to "speak with one voice"."
http://tinyurl.com/26qq2x
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7011439.stm
"speak with one voice".
Yes Prentis the right wing voice. The Lords awaits.
"General Motors strikers in Michigan speak to WSWS"...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsA10xwqjSw
"Unfortunately for Woodley, just days before he took the podium at the Labour Party conference to deliver his snow-job for Brown, it was revealed that the government had signed a multimillion-pound deal with an Australian-based job agency firm as part of its efforts to drive disabled people off benefits."
"WorkDirections UK, run by Therese Rein, the wife of Australian Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd, has won six four-year contracts under the government’s “welfare to work” programme, which has outsourced job search services to private companies. Earlier this year Rein was forced to sell off her Australian recruitment business amid complaints that it would represent a conflict of interests should her husband be part of a Labor government following the general election, and that it had been underpaying some staff."
http://tinyurl.com/28bob9
There is a debate going on about how to deal with the drain the disabled and the elderly/unemployed are having on the profits of New Labours rich friends. Not only in the UK but indeed all over europe and the world.I wonder what they will come up with?.
"Four years ago the chairman of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) youth organisation, Phillip Missfelder, had already declared, “I am strictly opposed to 85-year-olds receiving artificial hip joints at the expense of society as a whole.” Missfelder, who still leads the youth organisation and has been a parliamentary deputy since 2005, had made his calculations according to the current forms of free-market accounting."
http://tinyurl.com/2rp6r7
From little acorns do mighty oaks grow,hmmm to hang people off?.
I think we will hear more on this subject off New Labour in the coming months.
"If Gordon Brown obstinately refuses this compromise and forces his proposals through, could the last Labour Party delegate leaving the Bournemouth conference hall turn off the lights please, they will be the lights of democracy."
I do just wonder whether this is a little too over the top. What will the average Compass supporter think when there are 100's of fringes, demos and all sorts of debate at conference.
You and others will be back next year. Campaign Briefing will still look like it has been produced on an inky gestetner and will:
Sunday - Recommend which of the 4 CLP priorities delegates should support
Monday - Recommend some sort of challenge to the CAC report as well as which NPF members to vote for
Tuesday - Recommend which constitutional amendments to support
Wesdnesday - Recommend who to vote on CAC/NCC as well as comment on some challenge over the priorities debates
Thursday - Review the week and say how bad it was
So cheer up and get on with continuing to raise the issues that matter - both on this blog and elsewhere.
Peter Hain in his piece says:
"Yet the current system of contemporary resolutions has nothing to say about such serious, long-term deliberation - no mechanism for bringing people together to solve seemingly intractable problems. It is precisely such difficult issues these reforms are designed to resolve."
One of the weaknesses of the current system - and that of the previous 80 years before that - was that motions are passed on the conference floor by principled and idealistic people and then handed to people to implement who didn't disagree with them in the first place.
This in itself led to cynicism and the general view of "sell-out". The left has struggled problem since the 1870's and the Paris Commune. However it has never come up with a satisfactory system that resolves this. Democratic centralism is also impossible in the age of the internet!
What is needed is a Gramscian "praxis", between theory and action however he was only able to analyse the issue and not come up with a clear solution to the problem.
One of the problems is whether you want a policy developed on a 51%-49% basis or an evolved consensus. For example motions on the minimum wage were still a minority until the early 80's and that of gay rights until the mid 60's. How there is overwhelming consensus in the party on these issues. Nuclear power had a wide consensus in the 50's, a wide consensus against in the 90's and now views are more split even within the green movement. Clearly things do change but over longer timescales than annual conference timetables.
We are about to move into a period of consensus policy making. It won't be comfortable for those who like a 51%-49% victory, but force of political campaigning will still make change.
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