Parties and Members. Rules and Punishments
Political parties are organisations and have rules. But when how they are written, interpreted and enforced becomes factional everyone loses.
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The Labour Party is - or, at least, should be - a broad church. It has always been a party that spans the left side of the political spectrum from the centre to the hard left. It contains Catholic Socialists who oppose abortion and Libertarian Socialists who oppose any restrictions at all on bodily autonomy. There are unilateralists and multilateralists. Gender Critical Feminists and Trans Rights Activists. People who want to abolish private schools and people who send their children there.
And then there is the debate over the progressive alliance which has once again blown up over the fact that Compass founder and chair Neal Lawson has been threatened with expulsion over potentially supportive tweets regarding a pact between Lib Dems and Greens where the beneficiary of such a pact would be standing against Labour.
I myself have quite strong views about a progressive alliance. I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s defeatist. I think it weakens the socialist element of Labour politics. I think it focuses too much on not being Tories and not nearly enough on bringing a strong, social democrat/socialist vision to the country and making the best case for it. I think it relies on the Lib Dems. THE LIB DEMS. You know, the ones who traded a 5p plastic bag tax for supporting the pernicious and vicious Bedroom Tax and still call that a win. The ones who championed austerity and are, therefore, partially responsible for the mess we’re in.
At the moment, mine is the majority view, supported by the members and rules of the Labour Party.
However, it might not remain that way. Last year’s conference voted to support the separate but related issue of electoral reform. (I kind of agree with electoral reform in principle. But when I look at the problems of our country, I am utterly baffled by those who prioritise it). It may be that this is indicative of a shift in attitude among the wider membership towards a less Labour-centric and more pluralist approach to politics. it might not.
If it is the former, it may be that the Party decides to change its approach to advocating for electoral pacts. I won’t agree with that. But equally, I wouldn’t leave the party over it. I might voice that disagreement. I wouldn’t expect to get thrown out of the party for doing so.
To be functional, coherent organisations, parties do need to have rules that are agreed upon and stuck to. If those rules include not supporting candidates running against Labour - as they currently do - then those are the rules and people should not be surprised when they are enforced.
However, the truth of the matter is that rules do not seem to be enforced equally and fairly. Women have been complaining for many years about the inadequacy of the system around complaints of sexual harassment. There are complaints from many members around political differences tipping over into abusive behaviour.
There is a sense from many that the rules are unclear both in their written form and their interpretation. All factions have, at times, felt the rulebook was used not as a tool for sensible, effective party management but of factional oppression. This was felt by the centrists under Corbyn and the left now.
It’s not new for a faction who were once down to enact their own extreme interpretations of the rules when they come to the top. And the truth is, the left will be back in charge of the party one day. In a different form from the Corbynites - sure - but the turn of the wheel is inevitable.
So what do we need from each other when it comes to the pact we make as party members and the rules we agree to abide by when signing up?
We need to know that these rules and their application are sensible. That their application is fair and balanced and that punishments are not arbitrary or unjust. We should run the Labour Party as we would like to see us run the country - not by fiat or dictatorship but not laisse faire either. We need agreement from those leading and those led what It means to be a Party member both in terms of rights and responsibilities.
No one has a God-given right to membership of the Labour Party. Equally, however, no matter who is in charge, the smaller you make the membership the less you are likely to hear from a wide variety of voices in communities across the country. And however much it might sound nice to live free of challenge, doing so will fundamentally blunt your ability to make an argument. That’s no good to anyone. Because if you think the challenge you get inside the party is tough - wait until you meet the press and the voting public.
Political parties have a tendency to infantilise their members and then complain that they are behaving like children. Maybe we should all grow up.
I don’t think, one year out from an election is the time for a massive internal focus on the Party. I don’t think the leadership generally does either. The game plan - as best as I can tell - was to spend the first half of this Parliament sorting out the mess the party had gotten into internally and then pivot over this year to a laser-like focus on the public offer. The fact that Starmer’s missions have created a framework for six months (and counting) of Labour coverage and content shows this pivot has happened pretty successfully.
But here’s the thing. There is a reason people are still talking about the internal battles in Labour. There has been a clunkiness in the way Starmer’s team have dealt with internal dissent that has made this a story when it didn’t need to be. If they want to truly and fully pivot to talking to the country, they probably need to loosen their own focus on their power games with each other and with the membership. Let go a little. Not completely, but the vice-like grip has gone from necessary control to a chokehold. People who are a long way off from not wanting there to be any rules are starting to feel uncomfortable about quite how much control is being exerted.
As I wrote in my recent paid post these aren’t things that are going to lose Labour the next election. I don’t think there is currently much that will. But they might well be things that stop us from being as effective an alliance *with each other* as we can be. And that will have a long-term impact on our ability to govern well and renew in office.
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What I’ve been up to
Two episodes of House of Comments as always. One talking about the luck of Keir Starmer and the other on his speech outlining his approach to breaking down class barriers.
Here’s a clip of me talking about water regulation and asbestos in schools on GB News
Really excellent piece and I struggle to think what the structural change is that could be made here to improve either issue you raise. There was a great quote floating around (probably from Stephen Bush) that Labour is a bit like a newly independent state with democratic institutions but no real democratic culture and every faction will use every procedural tool available to hammer their opponents. How much of that can be outsourced to independent institutions? How much can be done openly and transparently without providing endless grist to the Conservatives and other opponents?
Where I think I disagree is that I do think FPTP is at least partly to blame for this in that there is only space for one major UK-wide non-Tory party so the stakes for controlling it are incredibly high, enough to allow people to justify almost anything.
Emma, in my opinion, unless there is an element of winning in politics, it might as be a religion or book club.