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EVENT
After the election: what next for centre-left politics?
CAMPAIGN
High Pay Commission
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The Advertising Effect
THINKPIECE
#60 Responses to Recession
By-election Statement: Labour must urgently restore party democracy
Norwich North is yet another bad result for Labour and another self inflicted wound. When so many MPs across the parties who played the expenses system remain unaccounted for, why was Ian Gibson singled out? It was either cock-up or conspiracy.
If it's the former then who is to blame? If it's the latter then the conspiracy would centre on Ian's voting record as a centre-left reformer. If so the conspirators should stand and be held to account.
This is the crux of the issue. Labour is no longer a democratic party in any shape or form. Candidates are junked and imposed at the whim of a machine centred between HQ, Downing Street and one or two unions. We have now seen that this backfires, time and time again - since 1997 Labour has lost over 4 million voters, it's driven away over half its members and most recently suffered 5 by-election defeats. This seems inconsequential to the command and control structure which is crucial when you are governing against the wishes, values and desires of centre-left party members. Party conference, the NEC, the National Policy Forum and local selections are controlled by the centre because no one can be trusted to vote for New Labour's increasingly uncomfortable relationship with out of control capitalism.
Labour can still muster a professional team of apparatchiks for a by-election but across the country the party on the ground is just a hollowed out shell. The Iraq war, the 10p tax debacle, privatisation and an adoration of wealth have all taken their toll. It would certainly be worse under the Tories but when your own side do their bidding what's the point of being a member - let alone an active one? But despite all the media manipulation even David Cameron hasn't quite sealed the deal with the country precisely because this is a centre-left moment - when people want and need collective answers to their problems - not the tax cuts for a few and spending cuts for the many his party are advocating.
New Labour is at the end of the road. No money, no grassroots organisation in the field, no narrative and no policies that will make the fundamental change to people's lives that is now required. We are sleep walking to a calamitous defeat. David Cameron may win by default because as is always the case - it is government that lose elections, not the opposition that wins them. Even worse, this government is now losing without a real fight. If things continue in the same direction nothing but defeat is expected and it is quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Compass and others will continue to set out an alternative agenda and a positive vision for a social democratic future, but eyes and ears are either closed at the top or good Ministers have their heads down ploughing their own furrow. The decline in party democracy, the tightening control by the very top mean that the party is increasingly constricted and closed off. But to be successful all parties need to outwardly renew themselves through democratic debate and to answer the issues of their own time.
So as we stated in June Compass would urge the party leadership to seek to instigate urgent democratic engagement and dialogue with the party membership, unions, CLPs, affiliated societies and the PLP in the run up to the party conference. This could be easily based around a re-statement of Labour values and policy intent in the run-up to the next general election, with a draft statement put online for comment. A final version could be voted on by every party member with the result announced in Brighton. Unless such a statement signalled a clear change of direction with a bold set of centre-left policies it would not gain enough support. The party leadership must now use such a process to demonstrate their commitment to listen, engage and only then, lead.
When the challenges of democratic reform, growing inequality and climate change have never been greater the country is crying out for a democratic and social response. Labour must now step up and restate itself as a 21st century party of social democracy in order to meet these challenges and to build the good society.
Want to write an article like this? If you’re a Compass member you can submit your own articles and start your own debates on the Compass debates member’s section, an autonomous space for our members to initiate debate and discuss ideas.
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Comments
on 27 July 2009, 10:34:03 AM
A seriously sick person is given £62 a week to live on. Where exactly would you see the reduction coming. Would it be £52 to take it down to carers level or £42 or what?
Or do you prefer the government approach of using the ATOS computer to declare 90% of sick people well enough to work and support themselves and take their benefit away completely.
Please look at the reductions the government are currently implementing. They aren't taking tax credits from Middle England on £35,000 because they want their votes. They are taking the money from severely sick people and threatening them and putting guilt trips on them. Bullies pick on the weakest. Is this really where you want to save money? Most likely you waon't believe me.
on 27 July 2009, 10:26:52 AM
There are so many issues facing this country - Unemployment, Immigration, Law & Order, Health Inequalities throughout the UK, an Unfair System of Government Funding to the rest of the UK, Energy - the majority being against Massive Wind Farms and the Doling-out of such enormous sums of money to Energy companies, yet Labour refuses to listen to voices of reason that come from the Electorate.
Their ignorance will be their peril and their own undoing.
At Norwich, they attempted to make a sacrifical lamb of their own sitting MP but only managed to self-impose burnt fingers.
on 27 July 2009, 10:03:26 AM
on 27 July 2009, 10:00:20 AM
I wish you luck - I really do - but I don't think you will find it that simple. We got so fed up with our MP voting against the almost unanimous will of the GC that we tried to have a reselection process. The more we tried the more the party controllers tricked us with all the non quorate and other devices they could. Being quorate is a moveable feast. It comes down when it suits them.
In the end the majority of branches voted for a reselection process but they invented all sorts of Friendly Society affiliations and TU affiliations that only involved one person and counted them against us so it was lost. We had three hundred active members asking for democracy back but we couldn't win and our leader was thrown out of the party.
You won't know what a strangle hold NewLabour have until you try and fight them.
on 27 July 2009, 9:44:42 AM
The LRC, Compass, the Greens, the LibDems are all fighting for protection for the really sick from sanctions and threats. Get this in to the public arena.
This bill has been brought in by a diaboliocal coalition of the most ideologically extreme parts of NewLabour (Purnell) and the Tories who can't believe their luck and are egging NewLabour on. Purnell is so ashamed of it he isn't mentioning it in all his media and website appearances.
Any normal person with half a heart will support the severely sick in this. The rest of the Labour Party are looking the other way which has become a bit of a habit. This dreadful attack on sick people will go on the statute books in the name of Labour. The Tories will implement it but won't have to take responsiblity. The public don't believe the severely sick are caught up in this. It is unbelievable. This is the first time I have campaigned on somthing that is so bad no one supports you because they think you are deluded.
Run a campaign to bring the appalling truth out in to the light and watch the decent part of the Labour Party peel away from NewLabour in disgust.
on 27 July 2009, 9:37:27 AM
I recently discovered that my CLP had held a meeting to select my local government candidate for 2010, without inviting me (or any other branch member) to be there, or even telling us, before or after the meeting. I complained to the Regional Office who said that they understood why it had been done that way (i.e. because our branch did not have enough active members to be quorate) and did not see the need to do anything further about it. I believe, however, that it is unlikely to happen again, since this anti-democratic practice, clearly outside the rules of the Party, was picked up. Perhaps I'm being foolishly optimistic, but I do think we can make Party leaders and officials listen to the grassroots, and I look forward to Compass leading the way on this.
on 27 July 2009, 9:09:23 AM
on 27 July 2009, 6:56:53 AM
I totally support Robert in what he says. the sick and disabled have been betrayed by New Labour. the tories will be no worse, the Welfare state is finished whoever is in power. New Labour should be taught a lesson and hopefully they will be finsihed for ever at the next election.
All these agencies (quangos,) like the Equalities commission which is partly fomatted from the old Disability Rights commission are a sham, discrimination law is money for lawyers, from those that can afford them, MOST SICK AND DISABLED CANNOT, New Labour has made a lot of propaghanda from all of this, whilst on the ground we are victims of draconian legislation that we can do little about. with much worse to come. This legisalation will not save money.
When the DDA was passed into law they abolished any pressure on employers to employ disabled people. Most disabled people I believe are so worn down by the system and the constant media hype of "benefit scroungers" that they trust very little. Employers are rarely criticised, and most have no understanding of mental illness, except to use it against the individual if they get ill. Many people are to ill to work, and should not be forced into therapy CBT Workfare, and sanctions.
People with mental illness are treated appallingy, the system imposed on us would make even the so called normal people PARANOID.if they were in our shoes.
Paul
on 27 July 2009, 1:01:41 AM
If this abomination is still in place by the time of the next election I might even vote Tory in order to punish the New Labour MP who voted for it. And I don't think I'm alone here.
The Purnellistas thought they were kicking people who are too weak and isolated to fight back but they have friends and relatives. Plus the massive surge in unemployment is going to knock Daily Mail attitudes about welfare on the head when thousands of middle class types who've lost their jobs through no choice of their own experience the reality of the benefit system between now and the election.
It is truly extraordinary that Brown didn't kill this off after the autumn crisis. In boom times of full employment you might get away with scapegoating the unemployed as feckless or idle and needing a kick up the arse to make an effort to find jobs. But now this could be New Labour's poll tax. They don't seem to realise that those humiliated by the Purnellite contractors will remember that it was Labour that did this not the Tories so why should they vote Labour back in come 2014?
on 27 July 2009, 12:44:02 AM
An economic policy is of course essential, but the Tories probably have an even worse grip on basic economics - and unless their rhetoric about cuts is just a tactic to get votes of those who believe in 'housekeeping' economics (like Thatcher) then the recession could bite even deeper. So even more reason for Labour to drop counter intuitive authortarian measures like the WRB which will make sure anyone 'liberal' puts their X elsewhwere (if at all)...
on 27 July 2009, 12:35:17 AM
The only solution therefore is for any self-respecting person to get out and leave the self-appointing ruling crooks completely deserted.
It is the only solution.
on 26 July 2009, 11:55:27 PM
I think that Neal's Observer piece on reforming the electoral system should be posted on this site for comment tomorrow.
There is a sensible political strategy available to the Labour Party in which electoral reform can be presented as one part of a wider constitutional reform package to extend democracy throughout the whole of the United Kingdom without appearing to drag PR through the political sewer (as suggested by one commentator) in a ridiculous and self-defeating effort to avoid the inevitable.
And there is time for a Labour government to prepare the country for a referendum if it fixes a day in May 2010 for a general election, and a referendum on constitutional reform, including fixed term parliaments and voting reform.
Given the decision of the German Federal Constitutional Court that EU decisions, summarised in the Speigel article I posted earlier, "The guardians of the German constitution are concerned about the EU's "democratic deficit" -- shortcomings it also sees in the Lisbon Treaty. On page after page, the justices formulate strict legal limits, stating that any future "Community law or Union law" deemed to violate those principles can be "declared inapplicable in Germany", there seems little reason now (other than to assuage the injured feelings of the Eurocracy) not to have the promised referendum on the proposed European Constitution/Lisbon Treaty at the same time, given that Germany's position in relation to the EU has changed so fundeamentally, and with it the relationships of every other member state both to the EU and to each other.
A federal Europe, unless it is strictly on Germany's terms as the Fifth Reich, itself even less likely than before the Court's decision, just ain't gonna happen and it may well fall to a Labour government to finally lance the boil, recognise the need to renegotiate the constitution/Treaty from scratch because of the change in circumstances and hold the promised referendum on the day of the General Election.
Coupled with a sensible economic policy between now and the election, a swift and unfavourable review of our extradition arrangements with the US, and putting the Purnell welfare reforms on hold whilst commissioning a review of their expected effects in the short, medium and long terms during a period of recession by the remnants of the Disabilities Rights Commission from amongst the disgraced Equality and Human Rights Commission may not ensure that Labour wins a general election, but it will go a long way to ensuring that the Tories do not.
The problem is, I do not think it within the bounds of possibliliy for Brown, failed re-treads like Mandelson and the usual members of the New Labour dumbocracy to offer a reform programme to the British electorate with any degree of credibility. But if the Labour party cries, "mea culpa", and prises Brown's grip on the leadership free on a reform platform, it will be possible for a new leader, elected by the party as a whole and as Brown should have been, to set a firm, and uncontestable date for a general election which gives him/her, and the opposition parties time to prepare, and agree or disagree, over proposals for reform, and campaign for their respective positions.
As both a member of Compass and a Liberal Democrat, pressing these ideas is how Compass needs to spend its summer if it wishes to save social democracy from the dead hand of New Labour, and the country from another completely unrepresentative Tory government intent on robbing the poor to stuff goodies down the throats of the rich (what we might call the Brown-Purnell Disillusion Effect ).
on 26 July 2009, 10:31:48 PM
Imagine a pluralistic cabinet with all strands at the table. I suppose PR is after this. But a democratically run Labour Party that let members vote in a cabinet on a PR system would get Jon McDonnell and even Purnell a seat.
on 26 July 2009, 10:18:06 PM
Del: aanyone ho
insert: anyone who
thanks
on 26 July 2009, 9:51:18 PM
It only took me about 25 years to ' get' what had to be done, but aanyone ho really wants to break free ot the current paradigm could make real progress towards a new way of thinking in a matter of weeks by thoroughly checkng out the Gaian Democracy website and www.kickingcommandandcontrol.com and anything by or about the following:
Kleisthenes, Stafford Beer, Horst Rittel, Peter Checkland, Joseph Tainter, W. Edwards Deming, Peter Senge, Ricardo Semler, Dee Hock, Richard David Hames, John Seddon, Joe Trippi and Paulo Freire, Guy Routh,
Steve Keen and Richard Douthwaite.
Meantime, some quotes to spur you on:
You never change things by fighting the existing reality... to change something...build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.
R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
The people who are trying to make the world worse, never take a day off. Why should I?
BOB MARLEY
A revolution that is not more technically proficient and more effective than the regime it supplants is lost
JEAN-FRANCOIS REVEL
I can´t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I´m frightened of the old ones.
JOHN CAGE
There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become... part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and means become identical.
EMMA GOLDMAN
on 26 July 2009, 8:23:45 PM
Getting back to PR a yes vote in the referendum would not prevent the electorate from giving Gordon Brown and New Labour a good kicking at the election. Even if there were a Yes vote it would not effect next year's election, only the one after that, even supposing the next Parliament were to enact PR/AV.
on 26 July 2009, 8:11:46 PM
So, if I catch your drift, Stan, what you're really saying is that it's all relative, and as long as it suits you it's OK, and if it doesn't suit, it's not. Very Tonyesque in a bumbling Gordie sort of way.
on 26 July 2009, 8:08:53 PM
on 26 July 2009, 7:59:22 PM
Why would anyone ever believe that a Labour Party led by Gordon Brown would introduce electotal reform that made the voting system more proportional? We've already had one Manifesto promise broken.
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I know its just a rumour, but I hear that Brown is proposing that after September 2010, any Prime Minister caught lying should be liable to capital punishment. It will not apparently be retrospective
on 26 July 2009, 7:59:22 PM
I could imagine Labour and Tories introducing a mimimalist version of AV (i.e you would have a second preference vote and thats all). That would probably be the only system that could produce a less proportional result than the current one
on 26 July 2009, 7:01:28 PM
on 26 July 2009, 6:18:39 PM
on 26 July 2009, 5:53:11 PM
on 26 July 2009, 5:45:40 PM
"There is a final compelling answer as to why Brown should go for a referendum. It is this. The electorate has stopped listening to him and his party. He needs to send out a wake-up call; that he gets their frustration and anger at the expenses scandal and is now willing to meet the scale of the challenge. A referendum could be a game-changer, a way of breaking through to turned-off and tuned-out voters. In its own way, it could be as big as the announcement on Bank of England independence or even the decision way back to scrap Clause 4. It would send an electric shock through the body politic. What else has he got in the locker and what has he got to lose?"
And in the same article, Cameron is described as a hypocrite and a lumbering dinasour.
Maybe the lowest point yet plumbed by Compass ? That seems to be the consensus at CIF. Nothing quite like "principle for sale".
on 26 July 2009, 4:29:37 PM
Is this why you called me an ASBO kid, Stan? A simple desire to avoid sensible discussion whilst feeling self-righteous and playing to the the neo-dumb claque? An interesting confession. Truly interesting.
on 26 July 2009, 3:14:01 PM
I feel that inevitably it is being accepted that spending cuts are the answer to the recession. The people will pay back to the the government the money the banks were given to get them out of the crisis they created themselves. The banking system continues as if nothing has happened.
Investment will create more income for the government; the velocity of circulation will create more income for the government. Choking spending and cutting development will have a downward spiral effect on finances and enlarge the recession. Labour seems to be dancing to a Tory tune but then it has done since 1997 when we all believed a new dawn was breaking.
tony mcneile
on 26 July 2009, 3:00:45 PM
About the same as Scotland. My impression is that Yorkshire people have a strong sense of being English.
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On a minute sample of acquaintances, including a cousin in York, I would hazard to say its not the same type of "English" that is felt in the Chiltons or Devon.
Anyway, I am not serious about complete independence, just a great deal more local power including the right to retain and use a large chunk of tax revenues...maybe all sales taxes.
on 26 July 2009, 1:35:38 PM
About the same as Scotland. My impression is that Yorkshire people have a strong sense of being English. I've lived in two parts of the county since I crossed the Penninnes from Manchester, on an elephant, in 1985. Paul di Leeds may confirm or deny my impression. Yorkshire becoming independent could start an irredendist war. What about those bits of it hived off to Lancashire, Manchester, Cumbria, Cleaveland and other places I can't remember.
on 26 July 2009, 1:07:20 PM
on 26 July 2009, 8:59:41 AM
I agree with what Robert said and meant to put that in (my mini rant) earlier. I find it disgraceful that Scottish MPs can vote on English only affaires knowing full well it will not have any impact on their constituents.
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Rather like English MPs voting to keep Trident on the Clyde or place nuclear power stations in Scotland both against the will of the Scottish people. I dont disagree with you Ian, but the sinning is on both sides.
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I think the comment on small EU countries comes from Martyn: Sure EU membership does not transform a basket case into a success. I am a close friend of an oustanding Slovenian economist, once a leading economist in the World Bank (but a good guy) who has done just this kind of study showing how Slovenia, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Luxembourg, Ireland, Finland, and other low population countries have disproportionately benefitted from EU membership. He was a key figure in getting Bulgaria its membership (somewhat of a miracle given Bulgaria's corruption). I think the case has been well made. Scotland too will benefit hugely from EU membership.
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Dugsie: maybe then just Yorkshire on its own ? What's its population ?
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Its an interesting research question as to whether voters will vote for a candidate of a New Labour regime they despise just because they like the candidate
on 26 July 2009, 12:56:17 PM
on 26 July 2009, 12:43:59 PM
I don't know which countries you refer to, but the inference that small countries do well AS A CONSEQUENCE OF membership of the EU is, I believe, false. Thos that do well do so because their culture and society will enable them to do well. All the EU does is provide a short-term subsidy to make them look as economically sound as the "better off" countries; I think that this is distortive and is more likely than not to be to the longer term detriment of those countries. Eire is a good example.
On the prior topic, I have some sympathy with your expressed view that New Labour ex-Ministers should be allowed to rmeain only as backbenchers. Pragmatically, this would potentially give them four years to PROVE their socialist credentials, and then maybe we could give them a parole review ? :-)))) If so, I want to be on the review board, although maybe Dugsie and Frances should take precedence.
on 26 July 2009, 12:42:55 PM
Demonising your opponents may give you an added sense of self-righteousness and win cheap applause from members of your clan. But it certainly doesn’t make for sensible discussion about the way forward
on 26 July 2009, 10:23:15 AM
I don't think so. People here have a close connection with Lancashire. I was surprised when no Yorkshire people died defending their boundary, when large chunks of the county was handed over to other authorities. Just a handful of people campaign for the restoration of Yorkshire. Many here cross the border regularly to support a Lancashre soccer team, even when it is playing a team from another part of Yorkshire. There used to be cotton mills here. When it comes to cricket, I support my home county of Surrey, even though I left there fifty years ago. Not that they are any good these days.
on 26 July 2009, 10:07:57 AM
on 26 July 2009, 8:59:41 AM
on 26 July 2009, 3:37:59 AM
So lets break up the UK: Scotland, Wales, Yorks/Northum/Durham, North West, Midlands, South-East, South-West (although we may have to let Cornwall unite with Brittany). All our problems solved !!
on 26 July 2009, 3:26:53 AM
I used to be a passionate Unionist but Iraq and the Workfare Act have swung it for me. The Britain I used to believe in is dead murdered by Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair between them. Let's hear it for William Wallace...
on 26 July 2009, 1:58:18 AM
on 25 July 2009, 9:51:33 PM
So Lee you speak of the Scottish branch of the party waking up to independent thought but do not most of the front bench come from Scotland anyway? Just a bit confused but I'm sure it doesn't matter in practice.
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The Scottish Cabinet Ministers are not much loved in Scotland. The only one who gets a half decent press is Douglas Alexander, whose family name was almost wrecked by the most awful Wendy. What you need to understand is that Labour HQ was pretty much hated among Scottish Labour as it is in constituencies throughout the north. I have attended many local Labour meetings in different parts of Scotland, and the distaste for Blair and later Brown has always been palpable. But in public they have been cowards and bitten their tongues. Wendy Alexander seriously damaged Scottish Labour and while a few constituencies are still quite feisty, and far more radical than one would expect to find in Labour, the central Scottish party is still lost in the weeds.
But talk about taking Scottish Labour independent is not that unusual. It is a theme that scared the dudu out of both Blair and Brown, and despite all the efforts of the toady leadership, the discussion will not go away. It makes sense..Scottish Labour would hope for some continued existence after Scotland's independence.
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Dugsie: Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland would make a cracking independent state, a partner to Scotland in the EU. I think the regionalisation of the UK would be a great idea. Imagine what could be achieved free of the dominance of London. You guys can use the Scottish financial hub.I can hear Stan screaming.
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Jon and Martyn
Even if some of the Blairites meet the bar for authentic conversion, those who served under Blair and Brown administrations would, in my book, be ineligible for leadership roles. They would be welcome as part of the rank and file.
on 26 July 2009, 12:50:07 AM
I know.
They didn't.
I'm not because the people who read it are just - or at least a lot - like me, and feel as I do...
And now is the time.
on 25 July 2009, 11:22:21 PM
‘It is wrong to write off "guilty people" as being beyond the pale. People can change, and they can learn. I have no problem with New Labourites who have come to realise that they made a mistake’
along with Lee’s qualification (that Martyn has concurred with) that anyone complicit in the New Labour Regime will have to be extremely convincing that they really have learnt from their past mistakes.
But the point still stands that if the Labour Party was really democratic in structure – it would be nothing like the empty shell it is so clearly now. And whereas I fully agree with Roy that the rot in the Party (and the system as a whole) can be traced back decades – Dugsie is right about the cold welcome for all those who do leave (in England at least – not particularly convinced by the SNP but apparently the Celts are spoilt for choice!) – it is either a disloyal ‘opposition’ of one or hello irrelevant extreme left sectarian cul-de-sac…
So taking all this on board here is my suggestion. All those who are genuinely left (and Martyn’s domestic list is left) should realise that the Tories are coming, and we have got prepare both defensive strategies for the long hard years of oppositon (predicated on a unrepresentative and illegitimate mandate – based on a small minority of the potential electorate who in most cases have been given no real alternatives.
But rather than get waylaid by the false dilemma of ‘in or out’ of Labour let us have our cake and eat it. All those on the left have a genuine far-reaching debate about identifying genuine left candidates for the Labour Leadership after Brown gets evicted next year. Then after much ‘campaigning’ in this ‘shadow’ leadership all the ‘left’ vote for their choice.
We all then agree to support the ‘winner’ with those left still in Labour staying – and the rest of us joining on mass as it were (how many of the genuine left is of course key, with Michael Prior at least making an ‘guestimate’) solely with the intent of voting in the leadership candidate.
If this ‘plan’ did not work for whatever reason (like it isn’t very realistic – perhaps this should just be considered a candidate for the ‘silly season’) then ‘we’ would all leave on mass - to start a real Left Party. (And nobody can claim that this would be 'entryist' in the slightest - because it would all be done in the full view of daylight...)
on 25 July 2009, 10:37:02 PM
But where would you place it ? "
Yep, we agree on Purnell and Milliband, and I'm astonished that you didn't mention your old friend Pete :-))))
My bar for existing New Labour apparatchiks is set at full nationalisation of the partially nationalised banks, nationalisation of public utilities, abandonment of the Welfare Reform Bill and Trident, reintroduction of Inheritance Tax and (at least for the next ten years) introduction of 60% income tax rate, democratisation of the House of Lords, democratisation of the Labour Party, new laws to govern large corporations and especially energy companies, tighter regulations on payments to MPs, banning MPs from second jobs while serving and following appointment to Cabinet.
I concur with a disavowal of Blair's Poodle Period, and the avoidance of future "imperial adventures" (whether in alliance with the USA or not) although I believe that the disbandment of the Trident project will do that better.
I certainly agree with your assertion that we must be cynical about the sincerity of these people - they have a great deal to prove.
on 25 July 2009, 10:25:59 PM
on 25 July 2009, 10:10:02 PM
on 25 July 2009, 9:51:33 PM
So Lee you speak of the Scottish branch of the party waking up to independent thought but do not most of the front bench come from Scotland anyway? Just a bit confused but I'm sure it doesn't matter in practice.
To give you some idea of how far right Labour have moved I was reading the voting record and CV so to speak of my Conservative MP and although there were some things I disagreed on a lot of what he supported I too supported! And this is a person who has a very traditional background, church going and army experience then something in insurance but he does work for constituents and did ask questions in the House on my behalf. What more could I ask for of an MP?
on 25 July 2009, 8:41:06 PM
It would be squeezed between the Tories and a real left party and the whole triangulation strategy would be short circuited. But as it is as long as they feel they have a monopoly of the anti Tory vote, apart from a few Orangeist Lib Dems here and there the Blairites are never going to go away. So the question becomes how do we get PR?
on 25 July 2009, 8:15:51 PM
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Dear Roy:
While Jon is one of our most admired members, there are a whole lot more of us who hold views similar to yours. For a long time, pained as I was about Blair's rape of the Labour Party, I held out hopes that it could be reformed and brought back to its traditions, albeit in a way more relevant for our times. Now I dont believe that will happen. Its not as if that tradition is dead in Labour, but it is locked up in the most bizzare fashion on the left of the party, which has no prospects of defeating the Blairites and their allies that dominate the party and keep in right of center; but will campaign for the re-election of a government whose views it desises. It must be one of the strangest and most inexplicable situation in modern British political history; and there seems to be a ten foot wide lead wall preventing anyone passing that message to the left.
So, Labour will be decimated at the election; the Blairites will consolidate power in the party and pretend via the Open Left Project that they are born-again leftists; the voters wont for a minute be foled by the deception; and the left will remain locked up inside Blairite dominated Labour that in opposition will probably become even less credible than it is today. Its a pretty bleak prospect, and to make the situation worse, the various remedies proposed by the right and their centrist allies are so thin and abstract as to be little more than advertising brochures.
Being a Scot, I still hope the day will come when Scottish Labour rediscovers its gonads, realises what a disaster it has been to be yoked to Blair, Brown, and Goerge Bush, and declares independence from English Labour. Its the only chance it has, which means it almost certainly wont happen.
So, yes, building a new party seems a whole lot more productive than trying to reform New Labour. How do you reform a group run by pathological liars and cheats ?
on 25 July 2009, 7:11:31 PM
The penny started to drop with me in the late 1970s when i read about the Schumpeteran definition of democracy as ' a competition between elites for the popular vote...' in Carole Pateman's " PARTICIPATION AND DEMOCRATIC THEORY". At that point I began to understand the resistance by Labour councillors to developing effective processes of public participation as rooted in their Schumpeteran model of government. As one of them snarled at me " If people want to participate in our decisions, they can bloody well stand against me at the next election."
When I saw in 1997 that Blair's election and the whole NuLabour project, had successfully disenfranchised the bulk of what used to be the loyal Labour vote, it was clear that the Labour Party would wither and merge into a ccoporatist political machine with two rightwings. Now there are millions of voters ( as in the USA) who have no viable political home. They have no chance of working with and voting for a party with a political platform that makes sense in the face of the immense complexities every society will have tp confront in the 21st century.
From the tone and content of the other comments and the statement from Compass, it looks as if you and i are the only people here who can see that the Labour Party has been moribund for a long time. I left it in 1989 and worrying about its twitching corpse is a form of displacement activity. Lets start thinking about what kind of political party would provide a political home for all the people betrayed and bamboozled by NuLabour AND what kind of a government could bring the UK through the unprecedented SYSTEMIC crises that the 21st Century will start to unleash over the next few decades.
on 25 July 2009, 6:48:02 PM
We both know that you and I would disagree on the manifesto, and that would be somewhat pointless to debate here (maybe next time I come to Sussex...I have friends in Wisborough Green).
But I hope you agree that probably the main reason why Labour is losing and facing the prospect of significant defeat next year, is the voters' perception of the government's corruption, dishonesty, and arrogance, and not simply a disagreement over policy. So, even if the agenda were to remain moderate, how would you fix the behaviour and attitudes that have seriously alienated the voters. I agree with what you will probably be tempted to say, that the Tories will probably be no better. But right now, that isnt going to halp Labour. They are the government and they are perceived as broken; and I cant believe this is just because of Daily Mail propaganda.
on 25 July 2009, 6:47:17 PM
Bit like Nick Brown and the rest of Gordie's New Labour acolytes with Ian Gibson, heh, Stan?
on 25 July 2009, 6:31:14 PM
The moderate approach may not always work but at least it stands a better chance of succeeding than one which would like to see the Respect Party and its ilk contesting future elections in place of the Labour Party.
And another mark of the extremist is their tendency to exaggerate out of all proportion any perceived fault of the moderates they are fighting against
on 25 July 2009, 6:22:33 PM
It is these kind of numbers which show why Compass is just spitting in the wind when it urges grand plans to persuade the LP leadership to change course; the numbers just don't add up. Brown, Blair and Mandelson broke the LP left and have since ignored it because it is not a major component now of the party.
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Michael, so here's the thing. That is obvious to both you and me, and I suspect most others who post here. So why do you think Lawson is advocating this as the action to take ? He too must know that even if the event occurs, it will do little more than leave the current Blairite leadership in charge, with perhaps a few new brochures to hand out, which will be patently fake and dishonest. Why is he advocating this action ? What's really going on ? Is this sheer desperation (and therefore a silly panicky idea), or is it something else ?
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