Refounding Labour: Winning Back Power
By Emma.
The 2010 election was a tale of two campaigns. On the one hand there were member-led innovations like Mob Monday and #Labourdoorstep which got activists targeting their support and pooling their resources.
Sadly, the campaign at the top seemed unable to capture this spirit and equally unable to really give the activists the space they deserved to lead the campaigns. The one opportunity I remember where this was attempted was the dreadful, disastrous “Fire up the Quattro” poster. When one considers how many people that went through for approval, it is astonishing that not one of them had the gumption to wonder about the public attitude to this pop culture figure. While one poster is not all that important in the grand scheme of things, this was emblematic of how distanced from the public and the lived experience of ordinary people.
To be a properly campaigning Party, we need to be a better disciplined Party. The astonishing situation we find ourselves in today is in many ways a mirror inversion of the situation of the 1980s. Party members – as a whole – are disciplined and focused on defeating the Tory-led government at every level. The staff and PLP are undisciplined, briefing anonymously, undermining the leader and therefore the members and defeating Labour in the public arena with scant attention to the feelings and needs of those they are supposed to serve.
I have already discussed issues around the staff. I believe it is also inherent that we change the way the PLP is organised and run. I believe that the events of the last few months have shown that it is essential that the Leader appoint his own shadow cabinet. As far as I can see it is the only way to restore some discipline into the PLP. While I supported Ed for leader, if any other candidate had won, and Ed supporter were behaving in the way some have done over the last 6 months I would be saying exactly the same. My loyalty is to the people of Britain and to offering them an electable Labour government.
Again I think that MPs need to have a contract with their CLP outlining what is expected of them as representatives.
In the 2010 Manifesto, we said:
“We will ban MPs from working for generic lobbying companies and require those
who want to take up paid outside appointments to seek approval from an independent
body to avoid jobs that conflict with their responsibilities to the public.”
I believe it is essential that we retain this rule while out of office and implement the lobbyist register as soon as we are returned to Government. We can never again be the Party where behaviour like that of Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon is allowed to take place.
Equally we must be a united force against the coalition. Any MP or Peer working for this Government in a formal capacity, as John Hutton and Frank Field have done, should have the whip removed from them. There should be no question of Alan Milburn getting a peerage.
The selection process should be better staggered over the life of a Parliament. I think the Island seats are a great idea, and selecting early in this way will have a positive effect on our chances of winning these seats. I realise that the boundary review is going to make other early selections difficult, but there should be a timetable rolled out for seats after that. A constant drumbeat of selections will help Labour to campaign long term.
We need to encourage MPs who want to stand down to announce that they are doing so as soon as possible. At present this is difficult as MPs fear they will lose power and status. I propose that MPs who announce early that they are going to step down should form an emeritus committee to consult on manifesto issues and processes, essentially formalising their role as Party grandees. I believe that this committee should have access to the manifesto process, but that retiring MPs should not be part of the Clause 5 process, as there is too strong a chance of a potential conflict of interest.
Tags: election 2010, electoral strategy, Labour, Party discipline, PLP, Refounding Labour, shadow cabinet
Tuesday, June 21st 2011 at 23:44
Really interesting post. As a Tory, I remember thanking the political gods when the Quattro poster came out. It seemed an incredible own goal.
The other thing that I still can’t get my head around, even now, was that Elvis event. It didn’t fit your campaign, it didn’t generate good publicity, it wasn’t particularly funny, it didn’t get out a message. It was just crazy, and showed a complete lack of thought or clarity re. what you were trying to achieve.
Your grassroots activists, by contrast, seemed meticulously organised, but it is always the central campaign and leadership that have the biggest impact on an election result.
Tuesday, June 21st 2011 at 23:48
Oh God, I keep forgetting about bloody Elvis!
Wednesday, June 22nd 2011 at 08:38
None of this caused Labour to get kicked out, it was a leader who took his voters forgranted, the comment of bigot ws my final straw, the attack on the sick the disabled, if he and Blair had attacked fraud or even attacked people by helping them, fact is if your disabled and you went to a job center the help was being sent to see a work provider was an eighteen eyar old being paid the lowest of the min wage who had no idea of life, and you being told you will do as your told, as if i was six.
Of seeing labour attacking the poorest with his famous so called tax fiasco.
In my area the local CLP wrote to labour saying, we dod not have enough people in the party to knock on doors, people are leaving in droves, and unless you change your attack on the working class this local party could close. We have had a labour party with a labour council for 97 years, now it’s independant coalition with labour being the junior party, if thats not a warning
Thursday, June 23rd 2011 at 10:48
“the attack on the sick the disabled, if he and Blair had attacked fraud or even attacked people by helping them, fact is if your disabled and you went to a job center the help was being sent to see a work provider was an eighteen eyar old being paid the lowest of the min wage who had no idea of life, and you being told you will do as your told, as if i was six.”
Exactly, and it’s still being carried on under Mystic Milliband, who thinks he knows if people on incapacity benefit are fit for work. Has he trained as a doctor on the quiet?
His comments about time-limiting ESA were welcome, as was his call for an independent inquiry into the Winterbourne View scandal, but he should apologise for his dog-whistle remarks on incapacity benefit and stand up for the vulnerable people on ESA and IB.
Until he does, I won’t vote Labour.
Ed Miliband needs to make a clear commitment to protecting the vulnerable and stamping out disability hate crime. His remarks on IB claimants just encourage the perceptions that lead to disability hate crime.