Even worse, the rule changes which Labour’s National Executive will put to the Labour Party conference this year, following the report, will not be revealed to union and constituency delegates until a few days before conference, or maybe not even until the conference itself.

The unions affiliated to the Labour Party, in their joint submission to the review (24 June), were also disappointing in many ways, but did propose some positive measures. (You can download the union submission here.)

The biggest of the affiliated union, Unite, in a report from its Political Director dated 11 June, has said:

• The right wing wants to curtail the influence of unions at conference, in the election of leader, and on the NEC. Unite is working hard with TULO on this. ‘We are prepared to consider full OMOV voting for the party leader in future – so that everyone has one vote only, whether an MP or a trade union affiliate member. This would be the equivalent of a primary”.

• Unite must win the battle against funding proposals which would eliminate trade union donations, and against the introduction of a supporters’ category, which would serve no purpose at all except as a counterbalance to the unions.

At its meeting on 23 July, the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy Executive recommended the following motion to trade union branches and committees:

We welcome TULO’s constructive proposals to increase the number of affiliates and individual members (e.g. with subscription rates which are more graduated on the basis of income) rather than to dilute the influence of members by creating a new category of “registered supporters” who could claim some membership rights (e.g. voting in leadership elections) without having any real commitment to the party, or making any financial contribution.

We call on our union’s representatives to speak and vote accordingly, and also to defend members’ interests in the following areas:

1. Local organisation. We welcome TULO’s recognition of the need to retain Labour Party structures that allow meaningful input into the politics and policy of the party. We will defend the right of local union branches to send delegates to constituency General Committees.

2. Policy documents. Conference should be given options and allowed to vote in parts. Affiliates and CLPs should be allowed to move amendments.

3. Motions to conference. We strongly endorse TULO’s recommendation to remove the restrictive “contemporary” criterion which currently leads to numerous motions on issues of genuine concern being simply ruled out of order. Motions passed at conference should be incorporated within the party’s policy documents.

4. Leadership responsibility. As the TULO submission makes clear, “if we are serious about giving members a voice, then we need to accept the freely made decisions of conference as legitimate party policy”.

5. Conference voting. We support the current evenly balanced system in which votes are equally divided (50/50) between CLPs and affiliates.

6. Conference arrangements committee. This committee should continue to consist of representatives of CLPs and affiliates only.

7. National Executive Committee. The NEC is the party’s governing body between party conferences. It should retain its full responsibilities. The current NEC structure gives under-representation to individual members and over-representation to MPs. We support the TULO proposal to increase the number of CLP seats (elected on a national basis) and in addition to reserve two seats for election by members in Scotland and Wales respectively.

8. Joint Policy Committee. In accordance with TULO’s recommendation, this powerful body should either be democratised (with proper representation for CLPs and affiliates) or abolished.

9. Leadership elections. We defend the right of our union’s levy-payers to vote in leadership elections. We also defend their right to have a full range of candidates to consider. We therefore oppose the current ability of MPs to keep off the ballot paper candidates who may have substantial support in the country at large. The right to make a meaningful nomination should be extended to CLPs and affiliates.

10. Parliamentary selections. A sitting MP is guaranteed a place on the shortlist and should have no reason to fear an open selection contest. TULO proposes that a sitting MP should in future need, in order to achieve automatic reselection, at least 66% of affiliated and branch nominations. This would be an improvement on current rules.

11. Rule changes. Any proposed rule changes should be circulated well in advance of conference and voted on one by one. The TULO submission makes the point that “we cannot treat our members as a force to be tamed or ignored”. We now call on our union representatives to argue forcefully for the points above in order to make the Labour Party properly responsive to our members’ legitimate and vital interests.

Rule changes submitted this year will, under current Labour rules, not be debated until 2012 conference; and CLPs have to choose whether to submit a rule change or a “contemporary” political motion (in September); they can’t do both.

The good news is that a review is going on, and that there are some 50,000 more members in the Labour Party than a year ago, giving a bit more life to many CLPs.

Just now, however, there is a flood of bad news.

Peter Hain has produced a new consultation document for the structure review. At several points it admits and regrets that current Labour Party structures and practices give almost no democratic say to the members and the affiliated unions. But it puts up for consideration no proposals to fix that.

The one proposal it does suggest, repeatedly and almost obsessively, is to create a new category of Labour “supporters” – not members, not even “affiliated” members through trade unions, as over two million people are, but some looser category – and give them some say in Labour affairs, presumably votes in Labour leadership contests and maybe candidate selections.

The latest reports are that Hain is pushing this scheme hard, and that Ed Miliband and his closest advisers are keen on it.

David Miliband, the defeated hard-Blairite candidate for Labour leader, is meanwhile developing his “Movement for Change” of “community organisers”. He and the other hard-Blairites are not content with having Ed Miliband do their will on most questions. It looks like they want to push him into resigning well before the next general election, and opening the way for David Miliband to become Labour leader.

The affiliated unions, which won Ed Miliband’s election as Labour leader against the majority of the Shadow Cabinet and the majority of Labour MPs, could block the hard-Blairites if the union leaders had the will and energy to do so.

TULO, the umbrella body for unions affiliated to the Labour Party, is due to make its submission to the Labour Party review within the next few weeks. Insider reports are that the current draft is better than previous ones, but how much so remains to be seen. Members of TULO unions have had no say in the drafting of the submission, which has been the preserve of a small number of top officials.

In Unite, Len McCluskey, on taking office as general secretary, handed over the running of the union’s head office to Andrew Murray, who is designated “Chief of Staff in overall charge of the administration and with oversight over a number of senior directors of human resources, political, IT and membership, executive policy, communications, research and education” (see record of January Unite Exec.)

Murray was active in the Stop The War Coalition, and co-authored a book on it with Lindsay German, then of SWP and now of Counterfire. If you wonder how Counterfire was able to get Len McCluskey on the platform of its Coalition of Resistance conference, and Unite to sponsor COR, look no further. If you think that means Murray is left-wing, think again.

Murray, a leading member of the Communist Party of Britain, is an admirer of Stalin and of North Korea.

His new clout in Unite is a serious threat to the democratic-reform movement in the Labour Party, as it is to the hopes of rank and file members of Unite for a more effective union with McCluskey as leader.

Insiders suspect Murray’s hand in a further recent setback in Unite. Early in 2011 Adrian Weir was appointed Political Director of the union, in place of the notorious right-winger Charlie Whelan. Weir is no revolutionary socialist, but is regarded by democratic reformers in the Labour Party as a friend and an honest dealer.

Now, for reasons and by processes unknown, Adrian Weir has stepped down, after only a short time in the job, and has been replaced by Steve Hart, former London regional secretary of Unite, who is expected to do what Murray tells him.

Unite’s rank-and-file activists have had no say in these changes, which probably shape Unite’s political activity more than any formal vote in this or that conference will. Nor even has the union’s infrequently-meeting Executive.

Labour Party insider Jon Lansman warns that “the party general secretaryship could be handed” by Ed Miliband “to an experienced Blairite hatchet man”, Chris Lennie, former Unison official and deputy general secretary since 2001.

Adding credibility to this rumour, Jim Pickard of the Financial Times relays a report that Miliband has approached the even more ultra-Blairite Matthew Taylor for the job. “He asked Matthew Taylor, the highly-regarded former strategy adviser to Tony Blair, now running the Royal Society of Arts, to take the post of general secretary and help redefine the party. Taylor declined”.

The unions can block Miliband if they want. But Lansman also reports that the unions’ previous solid united front in favour of Iain McNichol, current political officer of GMB, not a left-winger by any means but more likely to run a halfway civilised regime than Lennie, let alone Taylor, is fragmenting.

In short, the hard-Blairites are working hard to seal the cracks in New-Labourism created by the opening-out of the National Policy Forum (via the decision to elect constituency delegates to it by OMOV); the 2010 general election defeat; the election of Ed Miliband; the restoration of “contemporary motions” to Labour conferences; and the influx of 50,000 new members who want to campaign against the Tories.

The fight back against the hard-Blairites is inseparable from a fight for democracy in the unions.

This CLP believes that:

1. The review of the Party’s policy-making is very timely;

2. The number of motions to be considered by our Party’s annual conference should no longer be restricted to eight but should be increased to at least 12;

3. CLPs and affiliated organisations that submit a resolution should no longer be debarred from also submitting a rule change;

4. Motions may be on any matters of concern to CLPs and affiliates and should not be ruled out of order on the grounds that they are deemed to be insufficiently “contemporary” or that they could have been sent elsewhere;

5. Policy documents presented to Conference should be open to amendment and to being voted on in parts.

This CLP also believes that, in order to give members increased confidence that the policies agreed will be properly taken forward:

a. The decisions of conference should be respected by the party leadership and included, where appropriate, in our manifesto;

b. The shortlisting and selection of parliamentary candidates should be conducted by the local Party members without external intervention;

c. The number of seats on the party’s National Executive Committee elected by constituency members should be increased from six to ten, including one seat each chosen by constituency members in Scotland and Wales.

Your CLP can submit either a rule-change proposal (by 24 June) or a ‘contemporary’ motion (by 16 September; but it must be ‘contemporary’, i.e. refer to recent events, i.e., in effect, events in August).

Suggested rule change

The right to amend NPF documents at conference

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 21), Section B, Chapter 3 Party Conference, 3C Procedural rules for party conference, 2. Conference rule 2 – Agenda. 2C reads as follows:

‘All affiliated organisations and CLPs may submit one contemporary motion which is not substantially addressed by reports of the NEC or NPF to Conference . The CAC shall determine whether the motions meet these criteria and submit all motions received to a priorities ballot at the start of conference. The ballot will be divided into two sections. One section for CLPs and one section for trade unions and other affiliated organisations. At least the four priorities selected by CLPs will be time-tabled for debate, as will at least the first four priorities selected by Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations. Motions must be in writing, on one subject only and in ten words or less and may be supported by an explanation of why the motion should be prioritised. Alternatively, a constitutional amendment on one subject only may be submitted in writing. Contemporary motions and constitutional amendments must be received by the General Secretary at the offices of the party by the closing date determined by the NEC.’

Amendment

Add at end: ‘In a year when conference is considering the final stage documents from the National Policy Forum, CLPs and affiliated organisations may submit one amendment to the material set out in the final stage documents. These amendments shall be subject to compositing for debate and voting at conference in accordance with recommendations from the Conference Arrangements Committee.’

Supporting arguments

The Partnership in Power rule changes introduced in 1997 substantially reduced the opportunities for members’ participation in Labour’s policy making process. A rule change promoted by CLPD, and carried thanks to the support of trade union delegates, now gives CLPs the right to debate four subjects of their choice. However, most policy proposals are still decided by the National Policy Forum where CLPs and affiliated trade unions are under-represented. The rule change we are proposing would allow CLPs and affiliated organisations to submit an amendment to the final reports of the NPF. This would give CLPs some direct role in policy-making.

Suggested rule change

Four plus four should equal eight

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 21), Section B, Chapter 3 Party Conference, 3C (Procedural rules for Party Conference), Conference Rule 2, Clause 2C reads as follows:

‘All affiliated organisations and CLPs may submit one contemporary motion which is not substantially addressed by reports of the NEC or NPF to Conference. The CAC shall determine whether the motions meet these criteria and submit all motions received to a priorities ballot at the start of conference. The ballot will be divided into two sections. One section for CLPs and one section for trade unions and other affiliated organisations. At least the four priorities selected by CLPs will be time-tabled for debate, as will at least the first four priorities selected by Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations. Motions must be in writing, on one subject only and in ten words or less and may be supported by an explanation of why the motion should be prioritised. Alternatively, a constitutional amendment on one subject only may be submitted in writing. Contemporary motions and constitutional amendments must be received by the General Secretary at the offices of the party by the closing date determined by the NEC.’

Amendment

Replace the fifth sentence which reads ‘At least the four priorities selected by CLPs will be time-tabled for debate, as will at least the first four priorities selected by Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations’ with the following: ‘At least the first four priorities selected by Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations will be time-tabled for debate, as will at least the first four priorities (excluding those selected by the Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations) selected by CLPs’.

Supporting Arguments

Partnership in Power structures introduced in 1997 limited members’ direct input into conference to only four subjects. In practice these were chosen by the unions. Thanks mainly to union dissatisfaction with the way conference was being ‘managed’, the 2003 conference passed a rule change which provided for four subjects also to be chosen by the CLPs. But when it came to voting for priorities, CLP delegates were often
pressurised first by ministers in ‘briefing’ sessions, then by party officials, that they should vote for the priorities chosen by the unions because ‘there would not be time to debate more than four subjects’. The result has been that, in most years since, only one additional subject has been debated. The New Labour plan to avoid debate and the possibility of the platform’s defeat on controversial subjects was therefore largely achieved. This rule change would ensure that eight subjects are debated every year, four chosen by the trade unions and four additional subjects chosen by the CLPs. This would increase the role of CLPs and the influence of annual conference, the party’s sovereign body. The trade unions are generally very supportive of this proposal.

Suggested rule change

CLPs to have the right to submit a rule change AND a contemporary motion

The Labour Party Rulebook 2011 (page 21). Section B. Chapter 3. Rule 3C Procedural rules for party conference. Conference Rule 2 – agenda. Clause 2C.

The last but one sentence of Clause 2C reads as follows: ‘Alternatively, a constitutional amendment on one subject only may be submitted in writing.’

Amendment

Delete ‘Alternatively’ and replace by ‘also’.

Supporting arguments

The right of CLPs and affiliated organisations to amend the party’s Constitution is an important democratic right. There should be no restriction on this right.- At present, CLPs and affiliated organisations can submit either a rule amendment or a ‘contemporary motion’, but not both. This is an arbitrary and unnecessary restriction, since there is no link whatsoever between rule changes and ‘contemporary motions’. The above rule change would remove this unreasonable restriction. The trade unions are generally very supportive
of this proposal.

Suggested rule change

Annual Conference – minority positions to Annex Reports

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 21), Section B, Chapter 3 Section C (Procedural rules for Party Conference) Subsection 2B Line 4.

Add after ‘policy commissions’:

‘including any Annex Reports. The NEC will also make provision for any alternatives or minority reports to these Annex Reports to be presented, provided each alternative/minority report has been supported by at least 20 per cent of the members of the appropriate Policy Commission.’

Supporting Arguments

The Rule Book allows for Minority Positions to be timetabled every four years in relation to final reports from the National Policy Forum – provided at least 35 members of the NPF’s total membership of some 195 agrees to each Minority Position. Each year at Conference Annex Reports are moved by Policy Commissions in relation to the Contemporary Motions from the previous year’s Conference. At present these are put forward on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis. The above rule change would allow for a wider range of debate and bring the procedure into line with the process in relation to NPF reports. There are some 16 members of each Policy Commission, so a figure of 20 per cent to agree a Minority Report is roughly parallel with the process in relation to NPF reports.

Suggested rule change

Policy reports: end the choice between all or nothing. Allow conference to vote in parts

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 22), Section B, Chapter 3 Party Conference, 3C Procedural rules for party conference, Conference rule 2 – Agenda. 2G reads as follows:

‘Conference shall consider policy reports and draft reports as part of the rolling programme, the NPF report, the NEC annual report, NEC statements and development strategy, constitutional amendments and contemporary motions or emergency resolutions submitted and accepted. It shall not consider any business unless recommended by the NEC or the CAC. At any special session of party conference, the NEC shall determine the business to be conducted.’

Amendment

First sentence: after ‘strategy’ end the sentence and insert:- ‘Conference has the right to refer back part of any policy document without rejecting the policy document as a whole. Conference shall also consider…’

Supporting Arguments

Conference has always had the right to refer back any section of the NEC Report. But the platform has always refused to extend this right to NEC policy statements (except in 1974 when Tony Benn chaired the Conference). When Partnership in Power was introduced in 1997 delegates were led to believe that National Policy Forum reports would be voted on in parts if Conference so wished. But in practice this has not happened. Conference has to vote for the whole document on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. This means that documents are always passed, although delegates may be unhappy with one or more particular section. This proposed rule would allow Conference to have a separate vote on any part of a policy document. It is a simple democratic procedure that is long overdue. The trade unions are very supportive of this proposal.

Suggested rule change

Remove the arbitrary criterion of ‘contemporary’ in relation to annual conference motions

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 21), Section B, Chapter 3 Party Conference, 3C (Procedural rules for Party Conference), Conference Rule 2 – agenda, Clause 2C reads as follows:

‘All affiliated organisations and CLPs may submit one contemporary motion which is not substantially addressed by reports of the NEC or NPF to conference. The CAC shall determine whether the motions meet these criteria and submit all motions received to a priorities ballot at the start of conference. The ballot will be divided into two sections. One section for CLPs and one section for trade unions and other affiliated organisations. At least the four priorities selected by CLPs will be time-tabled for debate, as will at least the first four priorities selected by Trade Unions and other affiliated organisations. Motions must be in writing, on one subject only and in ten words or less and may be supported by an explanation
of why the motion should be prioritised. Alternatively, a constitutional amendment on one subject only may be submitted in writing. Contemporary motions and constitutional amendments must be received by the General Secretary at the offices of the party by the closing date determined by the NEC.’

Amendment

First sentence: delete ‘contemporary’ and delete ‘which is not substantially addressed by reports of the NEC or NPF to Conference.’ Second sentence: delete ‘determine whether the motions meet these criteria and’.
Last sentence: delete ‘contemporary’.

Supporting Arguments

CLPs have precious little scope to influence decision-making at annual conference and the right to submit a single ‘contemporary motion’ is one of their most important opportunities. Indeed, this lack of real influence is a major factor why less and less CLPs are sending delegates to conference. Last year fewer CLPs sent delegates to conference than at any time since 1945. Unfortunately the arbitrary criterion of ‘contemporary’ is not only not properly defined, but it is unnecessarily restrictive. It lends itself to being used by the platform to rule out controversial issues that the Party establishment would prefer not to see on the conference agenda. But in a democratic party, annual conference (the Party’s sovereign body) should have the right to discuss all subjects which affiliated organisations, both CLPs and unions, consider are important. There should be no artificial barriers on this right. CLPs and unions should therefore have the right to submit whatever subject their members consider important. The unions are very supportive of this proposed rule change.

Suggested rule change

Election of the Conference Arrangements Committee (constituency section) by OMOV

The Labour Party Rule Book 2011 (page 26), Section B, Chapter 4 Elections of national officers of the party and national committees, 4C Procedural rules for elections for national committees, Clause 1B Election of Conference Arrangements Committee, Sub-clause i.b. reads as follows: ‘The other two members, at least one of whom shall be a woman, nominated by CLPs shall be elected by means of a ballot among delegates from CLPs at party conference on a card vote basis as provided in these rules Chapter 3 C.3.A above.’

Amendment

Delete: ‘among delegates from CLPs at party conference on a card vote basis as provided in these rules Chapter 3 C.3.A above.’
Replace with: ‘conducted among all eligible individual members of the party by means of a national one-member-one-vote postal ballot conducted to guidelines laid down by the NEC.’

There is no mystery about Labour’s decay. In the mid-1990s the party structure was hijacked by a crew of smart-suited careerists, heavily based in the “politosphere” of people who go straight from university to jobs in think-tanks or NGOs, or as “political advisers” or “researchers” around Westminster and Whitehall, without ever touching working-class ground.

Through a bunch of rule changes, that crew cut off almost all input to Labour Party decision-making from the working-class base of the party, in constituency organisations and in trade unions. It committed the Labour government to the service of (as Peter Mandelson put it) the “filthy rich”. When, by way of fluke, the Labour Party conference got to discuss policy, and voted for a different line, the Blair-Brown crew ostentatiously ignored it.

Labour Party membership plummeted, but the “New Labour” crew didn’t care. For them, politics was a game played between them and the media, with people who have lives outside the “politosphere” serving only as the raw material for focus groups and market research.

To fix this, the Labour Party has to start having democratic conferences, which debate motions coming from constituency Labour Parties and unions, and take decisions which are binding on the party leaders. Everything else can flow from that.

Hain seems to have noticed that the patient is starving for lack of democracy. He writes of:

● “tension between rank and file members, affiliated organisations, and elected representatives”;

● “trend towards open [sic] discussions with all views being summarised and forwarded [to the trash-bin] rather than voting on old-style resolutions”;

● “members… wonder[ing] what the point is of trying to influence policy-making…”

● “CLPs holding discussion meetings… without any tangible link to actual policy-making…”

● “command and control culture”;

● “party members [feeling] they had no influence on policy outcomes”.

But he proposes nothing to fix all that. His report instead offers wordy musings on many things, and especially three ideas:

● giving some sort of say in the Labour Party to a category of “supporters” who are not members, not even affiliated members through their trade unions. How will that be done when the actual members have “no influence on policy outcomes”? This only means giving the top ranks of the party yet another reserve-power: in case the members and the affiliated unions should find a way to put real pressure on the leaders, the leaders can head it off by appealing to an electorate of the uninvolved and more easily manipulated.

● loosening up local Labour Party structures from their alleged “bureaucratic template”. Here Hain is pushing only for an extension of the disease he has himself noted: what used to be decision-making meetings transformed into “consultation” sessions, which have a “general discussion” and then promise that “all points of view” will be forwarded… somewhere. He is also, slyly, pushing to exclude union delegates from local Labour Party decision-making. The “bureaucratic” thing is what he proposes, not the basic democratic procedures of delegate meetings and votes on motions.

● connecting with “community groups”. If local Labour Parties become democratic bodies which campaign against the cuts – including cuts by Labour councils – then they will make links with community groups. If they continue the culture of “consultation”, “question and answer sessions”, and so on, then they won’t.

Activists should contrast Hain’s document with Labour Party Democracy Task Force report, and make submissions to the consultation accordingly.

The draft focuses on Labour conference 2011 having a democratic debate, and a range of options to vote on, rather than committing your union to particular options, because there are already a number of democratic rule-change proposals tabled for conference 2011, and new rule changes submitted in 2011 will not reach Labour conference floor until 2012.

This union welcomes the decisions by the Labour Party to review its structure;

Resolves that in the Labour Party, and at Labour Party conference 2011, the union should use its influence in favour of ensuring the Labour Party conference debate on renewing Labour Party structure is able to consider and vote on all the different options with significant support in the party.

The website:

• Appeals for activists to sponsor and send donations to the Task Force;

• Offers to send speakers from the Task Force to union and CLP meetings;
• Sets out the objectives of the Task Force;
• Offers a model motiion for union conferences 2011.

Further and more detailed briefings will be posted to the Task Force website soon.

Click here to download this leaflet as pdf.

Labour needs living conferences!

Since 1997, Labour Party conference has become more like a rally and photo-opportunity than a conference.

Labour conference used to be “the parliament of the labour movement”. There were many shortcomings, and many problems about getting the Party leadership to stick to policies decided by conference, but there was real debate, and there were real decisions.

Since 1997 debate has been squeezed to a minimum. Where decisions with any bite have been taken, the Party leadership has considered it so obvious that it will disregard them as not even to need saying.

The low point was reached with the 2007 conference, which voted to ban political motions to conference from unions or CLPs.

It has been promised – and by now it seems impossible that the promise will be evaded – that this 2010 conference will see a return to taking and debating motions.

But for conference to have real life, much more will be done. And until and unless the Party has a conference with real life and real decision-making power, all talk of improving Party democracy is empty.

The following measures have all built up sizeable support in unions and CLPs, and are essential:

• Conference to be able to amend, and vote in parts on, National Policy Forum documents.

• A wider range of motions to conference, and without the restriction that they be “contemporary” (meaning, in effect, relating to events in August), a restriction which can enable CAC, if so minded, to rule out almost any motion.

• A genuine review of Party structures. Full debate on proposed rule changes, without attempts to rule them out of order on the spurious grounds that some other rule change affecting the same broad chapter of the rule book has been debated within the last three years.

The leader is there to serve the party, not the party to serve the leader

Conference will of course want to welcome the new leader announced on 25 September. But we must remember the democratic principle that leaders are there to serve parties, not parties to serve leaders.

In 1994 Tony Blair had a landslide majority in all three sections of the electoral college. With the Tory government already “walking wounded”, Blair gained immense political “capital” as the Labour leader who would (and did) end 18 years of Tory rule.

In hindsight it was foolish for the Party to give Blair the virtual free hand that he gained. It was foolish to think that issues of policy, principle, and Party democracy could be set aside on the basis that defeating the Tories was all that really mattered.

The result was that we got a “Labour” government that was pretty much “Tory” in many of its attitudes and policies. We are still living with the deep political demoralisation in the working class, and the deep decay of Labour Party organisation and activism, that resulted.

Never again! All the leadership candidates have promised more Party democracy. Let them start by supporting moves to restore real life to Party conference, and pledging to abide by democratic conference decisions.

Defend the union-Labour link! Reject state funding of political parties

On 9 September deputy prime minister Nick Clegg promised “new rules on spending and donations” for political parties, tied with “greater state funding”.

The Government will probably try to ban collective trade-union funding of the Labour Party, as proposed by the Hayden Phillips report in 2007.

The Tories and the Lib-Dems will always have more rich backers, and always have ways to split up those rich backers’ donations into smaller lumps if necessary. They will also have more donations from the well-off middle class.

Trade unions and socialists founded the Labour Party so that collective working-class action, pooling the individually-puny financial resources of millions of working-class people, could offset that advantage of wealth. The proposal is to make that collective working-class action illegal!

State funding is not a “fair” alternative. It is a proposal to turn politics even more into the affair of a separated-off “political class”, living very comfortably above the heads of the majority of the population on the basis of voting themselves money.

David Miliband has made a welcome statement. “Working people organised in trade unions bring special character, tradition, and insight to our party. That relationship will not be negotiated away, and we will not have our internal party structures decided by Tories”.

Worryingly, however, Ed Miliband – the candidate whom, for some good reasons, the big unions have backed and most Labour left-wingers have voted for as no.2 after Diane Abbott – told “Left Foot Forward” that he wants “wider reforms to our political process, including to party funding”. The Financial Times (24 September) quoted “a source in Ed Miliband’s campaign” as saying that he “promises to work with the other parties to make progress on party funding”.

Make Labour councils fight the cuts!

Conference will probably be unanimous about fighting the Tory cuts, and rightly so.

But how can Labour fight cuts effectively and credibly if Labour’s representatives in many local authorities are making those very same cuts?

It will not be a matter of painless trimming at the edges. The money transferred from central government to local councils is likely to be cut about 25%. Twenty-five per cent cuts by councils will trash services and jobs, and deeply antagonise millions of people, just as much as 25% cuts in central government programmes will.

There is an alternative. Labour councils can work with unions and communities to force the Government to repeal social cuts, and instead to cut areas like arms spending.

Some Labour councils talked a lot about doing that in the 1980s, but did not follow through to the end. The answer is to follow it through to the end.

It is not true that councils must cut immediately or collapse. Local authorities are large bodies with financial flexibility. They have assets they can sell, for example. They have ways of winning time.

If they do that, they can set themselves at the head of great rebellions against the Lib/ Tory government’s devastating cuts, instead of becoming local agents of those cuts.

Trash capitalism, not services, jobs, and benefits!

The labour movement should fight the cuts unequivocally, and back policies to deal with the crisis at the expense of capitalism, not of the working class.

• Sack the bank bosses — for a single, publicly-owned, democratically-controlled banking, pensions, and mortgage service.

• Tax the rich and business to expand public services. Open the bosses’ books; nationalise companies which axe jobs, under workers’ control.

• Decent jobs for all. Cut work hours with no loss of pay.

• A crash programme of council house building and repairs.

• Scrap the Tory anti-union laws. For legal rights to organise, to strike, to take solidarity action, and to picket. Full equal rights for part-time, temporary and agency workers.

• Stop and reverse cuts and privatisations. Restore the NHS. Nationalise the drug industry. No to Academies, a good local secular comprehensive school for every child. Free education from nursery to university. Living student grants.

• Cut arms spending; scrap the Trident replacement. On the evidence, sending troops to Afghanistan does more harm than good; they should be withdrawn.

To carry through such policies we need a government very different from New Labour. a workers’ government, a government based on a renewed and reorganised labour movement, a government that serves the working class as the Tories — and Blair and Brown in their time — have served the bosses and the rich.

• For working-class representation in politics. New Labour seriously disenfranchised the working class, blocking the political channels which might have enabled working-class organisations to enforce policies.

• Reconstruct and fight for Labour Party democracy and the trade-union voice in the Labour Party.

• Support for workers and working-class communities fighting back.

Socialist Campaign to Stop the Tories

The Socialist Campaign to Stop the Tories and Fascists was established in the run-up to the May 2010 general election to provide a socialist, anti-New-Labour voice within the Labour campaign to stop the Tories.

Sponsors include: John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington and Labour Representation Committee Chair; Susan Press, LRC Vice-Chair and Hebden Bridge town councillor; Maria Exall, LRC Vice-Chair and CWU National Executive; Paul Holmes, secretary of Kirklees Unison and United Left candidate for Unison general secretary; Andy Dowland, South West Regional Rep, UNISON Labour Link, and Yeovil CLP; Pete Firmin, LRC Joint Secretary and political officer of CWU London West End Amal branch; and many more.

SCSTF, BM Box 4628, London WC1N 3XX

http://bit.ly/scstf
stopthetoriesandfascists@gmail.com

Phone 020 7207 0706

24 September 2010

Don’t miss these meetings

Saturday September 25. Convention of the Left: “building unity to stop the cuts”. 10:00-17:00, Friends House, Mount St.

Grass Roots Umbrella Network briefing for Labour Party conference delegates. 17:00, Bar 38, Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester M2 5GP

Sunday September 26. CLPD briefing for Labour Party conference delegates. 10:30, Bar 38, Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester M2 5GP

LRC fringe meeting. 19:00, Friends House, Mount St.

Monday September 27: Socialist Campaign Group fringe meeting. 19:30, Mechanics Institute, 103 Princess Street, Manchester M1 6DD

Wednesday September 29: CLPD Labour Party conference assessment meeting. 18:00, Bar 38, Great Northern Warehouse, Peter Street, Manchester M2 5GP

A delegate at the Unison Labour Link conference (2 July) reports that at the Labour leadership hustings there Diane Abbott offered a clear alternative to the ex-Cabinet candidates on privatisation, PFI, low pay, and housing – but was no stronger on trade union freedom than the others.

The report sums up why socialists should support Diane Abbott in the contest, but also organise around our own clear policies, criticising Diane Abbott where necessary and not relying on her.

Diane Abbott did support the Trade Union Freedom Bill when John McDonnell introduced it in 2006. When questioned by “Unions Together”, she was the only one of the candidates who would say even as much as: “the next Labour leader must commit to doing away with a legal situation where courts can halt strikes on a technicality about the trade union’s ballot”. But she has yet to come out in public support of the new Private Member’s Bill proposed by John McDonnell which does exactly that.

The system where 33 MPs’ nominations are needed to get a candidate on the ballot paper – and so not only Abbott, but also Ed Balls and Andy Burnham, visibly had to rely on nominations given just to avoid a blatant show of stitch-up – is undemocratic. There should be a democratic method for regular Labour Party leadership elections, controlled by the members of local Labour Parties and the affiliated unions, with no special power for or veto by the MPs.

If we had a democratic system, we would have a better choice now, with John McDonnell’s name on the ballot paper.

As it is now, Diane Abbott is the left candidate, however sharply critical we are of her record. Over the last 20-odd years she has generally voted and spoken against the Iraq invasion, privatisation, and cuts, and for trade union rights, migrant rights, expanded council housing, scrapping Trident, free higher education, and civil liberties.

The other candidates have been Cabinet ministers and backroom boys for Blair and Brown. They now say they want to “move on” from New Labour, but with almost no specifics except the foul talk by Burnham and Balls on immigration.

Socialists should support Abbott as part of our concern to organise the left in the labour movement as a whole, and with the understanding that the bigger the vote for Abbott, the better the conditions for organising to do that.

The wretched case of Diane Abbott’s decision to send her son to private school sums up why we must be critical. Abbott had been sharply and publicly critical of Harriet Harman for sending her son to a selective state school in 1996.

When Abbott’s son started at private school in 2003, she responded to criticism by saying that her decision was “indefensible” but she would rather do what benefited her son than be politically consistent. Now she demagogically defends the decision by saying that it came out of the devotion which West Indian (only West Indian?) mothers have to their children, and criticism is idle talk by “white middle-class men”.

That sort of inconsistency is why Abbott’s background includes not only her left-wing votes in Parliament, but also a poor record on actively supporting workers’ struggles, on using her position as MP to promote rank-and-file campaigns in the labour movement, and on the misdeed of Labour councils in her own patch in Hackney.

In her first political statement for the leadership contest, in Tribune, Abbott put “reviving internal party democracy” at the top of her political prospectus.

Excellent! Unless and until we win the right for a democratic Labour Party conference to have effective control of Labour policy and what the leadership does, even the best left-wing promises from aspirant Labour leaders are only promises, likely to fade away under pressure as Diane Abbott’s opposition to private schooling did.

At Labour Party conference 2009, the Labour leadership was pushed into promising a comprehensive review of the whole undemocratic structure which Tony Blair, at the peak of his prestige, steamrollered the party into in 1997.

The first question for every leadership candidate should be: will they see this review carried through loyally? Will they provide for a free democratic vote on each structural issue, or try to ram through a “like-it-or-lump-it” package? Will they personally support control over policy by a democratic conference?

Even if Abbott will not be clear on this, socialists should use her candidacy to raise the issue and build support.

Unions which have committed themselves to back only Labour-leader candidates who support the broad lines of union policy on cuts, privatisation, Trident, and anti-union laws can be true to that commitment only by recommending Diane Abbott. As a basic measure of union democracy, socialists should campaign for unions to make that recommendation.

More details soon. For the John4Leader Facebook group see here.