Reform has to mean all parts of the Party – staff too
By Emma.
There was an important post on Labour List this weekend about one of the real uphill battle the Labour Party has to face. It’s a problem I have battled with for years. It’s a matter of our legitimacy, our ability and our credibility. And we are shying away from it.
In all the reviews of Labour’s policy making and party structures there is something missing. Any discussion of root and branch reformation of the Party staff. The Party staff work long and very hard. But I am unconvinced – sceptical even – that they are led to do so in the right way with the right outcomes in mind.
Everyone has a story about the control freakery of the Party. From the “lost” submissions to the press releases not viewed by candidates; from queries never answered to open derision aimed at member bodies. From the canvassing for votes and strongarming delegates at conferences at which you were supposed to listen to the will of the party to ignoring what came out of those votes when it didn’t go as planned. But few in a position to do so ever speak up further than complaining at our branch meetings.
Mostly we rightly blamed the leadership. And we will be right to do so again if Ed doesn’t get a handle on this problem. But we can’t ignore a whole aspect of the Labout culture that exists and reinforces itself among the staff.
What has happened at head office is understandable in a historical context. When Labour was tearing itself apart, an over emphasis on their role in our internal discipline wasa essential to bring us back from the brink. But what was once essential is now habit. Current and former party staffers I meet take pride in defining themselves against the members, despite the members having grown and matured away from the undisciplined rabble we have been. We don’t need a nanny anymore, and clinging to that role is making you an inadequate provider of what is needed.
The Party is about to appoint a new General Secretary. I urge whoever that is to be far bolder than any person in that role has managed for years and remember why you are are. Remind the staff what they are for not just what they define themselves against. Introduce member feedback and modern mechanisms and understanding of politics. Don’t just have a Movement For Change officer, have a genuinely changed ethos.
I want to support the staff in continuing to do the hard, hard slog of getting us back to power. All I ask, all I want is that they decide to support me and the millions like me in doing the same.
Friday, May 20th 2011 at 18:22
A timely, wise and heartfelt message, methinks.
As a mere voter/supporter and not a party insider, I can’t say much. I just don’t know the a-b-c of the Labour Party’s internal admin and hierarchy. But the superficial impression I glean is one of a restrictive, top-down, HQ-knows-best organisation; and at times it seems to be heavy-handed & leaden-footed, even obtuse.
I’d agree that it’s an issue which has to be addressed, the sooner the better.
Electoral changes, if they go ahead, will reduce the number of constituencies and re-draw their boundaries wholesale. This is a major organisational challenge and, to achieve a successful outcome, for the common good, there will have to be a high degree of cooperation and teamwork.
Care will also be required to ensure that the future balance of the Party is not shifted adversely – vis-a-vis the wider membership and the PLP – by, for example, the organisational & lobbying skills of the Progress/ Blairite faction pushing its own candidates forward at others’ expense.