Though Cowards Flinch

(Note: this is the second and maybe final trial cross-posting from the Bickerstaffe Record before a decision is taken on full merger, or not.)

I side firmly with those who think the Tories’ high profile adoption of the process in Totnes(and its less high profile adoption of a different primary process in West Lancashire a couple of years back) is a silly gimmick, and my reasons are not massively different from those already set out ably by others like Dave at TCF, and not least (but possibly one of the least noticed) Reuben.

In brief, primaries of the type seen in Totnes:

• Cost too much to be replicated, and the Totnes primary represented the victory of having loads of money in search of a headline over proper thinking about the democratic process;
• Are based on an intra-party shortlisting which allows only the party-compliant through to the final round, thus making any pretence that the primary is ‘open’ to the wider public utterly hypocritical;
• In a broader sense, militate against any real democratic engagement by a process of ‘containment’, whereby the party in question is seen to have opened up choice in the expectation that it can then get on with business as usual about the really important stuff i.e. wielding institutional power;
• If replicated in any way, are very obviously open to manipulation by opposition parties (e.g. through their active promotion of the worst candidate) that very soon whatever credibility the process had at the start will be lost in a welter of claims and cross claims (and expensive interventions) about who was trying to influence what. The unintended consequences are hardly rocket science.

From a Labour party perspective, I am not surprised that some people within the party have been convinced of the virtues of primaries, but I am surprised that others whose views I respect, like Sunder, have been so immediately supportive of the idea. Such immediate caving in to the idea that primaries represent some fundamental shift in UK politics reflect, to my mind, a desperation to promote change, any change, at the expense of the usual intellectual rigour displayed on matters of political practice.

Such desperation is, however, perfectly understandable. For those who love the idea of rejuvenating the current democratic process, whatever its failings in terms of actually dealing with institutional power imbalances, the idea that a tinkering with one part of the process might have a decent impact on public perceptions of that process as a whole must be very appealing.

My contention though is that, if you’re going to tinker, then you should do it properly and in a considered manner. There IS a way of tinkering with the way political parties at local level undertake all their party functions – not just the relatively minor matter of selecting an MP who won’t be under their control in any way once they get to parliament – which would actually enhance democratic engagement in a way which is both good for parties themselves, and good for public perceptions of those parties.

I have already set out that proposed tinkering process in full here, but repeat it below just in case you can’t be bothered to click on the link. Before you get on with reading it though, a couple of points should be made.

a) When I wrote it, I wasn’t a famous blogger, no 2 on the all-time list of great local councillor bloggers. I am now, so I expect that the proposals will attract much greater attention, so you’d best read and digest the intense wisdom, or be shown up for not knowing the latest policy developments when they are presented to Labour conference in the Autumn.

b) While the proposals presented are aimed at cross-party change, there is no reason they cannot be adopted in part by one political party. The others will follow suit soon enough. Trust me, I’m a blogger.

Proposal for a total reversal of financial flows of current state funding to political parties
a) What’s proposed

The whole financial flow of state funding for all political parties that have representatives in the House of Commons (as a proxisy for overall current national legitimacy, and to exclude the BNP and other nasties) should be reversed, in order to promote local political activity and accountability to the grassroots.

The total amount of state funding should be equivalent ONLY to the amount of funding provided indirectly to political parties in the forms of MP allowances, ministerial allowances etc and, for example, funds spent by the BBC on allowing free party political broadcasts. There would therefore be no overall additional cost to the taxpayer.

The overall ‘pot’ of money should then be divided up at a local level e.g. CLP level/Tory association level on a pro-rata basis according to membership at the start of the financial year. It would be up to the parties themselves to debate and decide on what amount of this locally allocated resource should be allocated to national party levels. If the Labour party want to involve trade unions in those discussions, that’s up to the Labour party etc. The important change would be that, as the money if formally lodged with local parties in the first instance, the power balance between centre and local is changed, in my view for the better.

All other types of donations would be permissable, but could only be made to local parties, and would not exceed a certain ratio of private donation to state funding (level to be agreed). Individual donors would only be able to donate to a limited number (let us say 3 for arguments sake) of local parties in this way, of which one would need to be the donor’s area of residence. Unions would abide by the same rules, with each union branch counting as an individual donor. There would be an expectation that the ratios of state to donor funding permissable would fall over the first few years, as the money is replaced my membership fees in rejuvenated local parties (see below).

b) Rationale and consequences

The reversal of financial flows, as set out briefly would do two main things.

First, and important enough in the current context of poor public opinion of both MPs and national level political parties, it would make them much more accountable to the local parties that selected them to stand for office (whether parliamentary or intra-party) in the first place.

For example, the money that used to go straight to their MP expenses bank accounts to fund e.g. local offices, local staff as well as their day-to-day personal expenses will be lodged, alongside any other matching funds, with the local party. The MP will need to justify her/his claim to a section of the overall local party ‘pot’, perhaps by setting out a ‘business plan’ for an appropriate period and justifying costs. In most cases, local parties are going to want an MP who does plenty of casework and local representation, as well as ‘performing’ for them in parliament as they want them to, and will provide a reasonable budget for this, including a OK place to live in London during the week and that kind of thing.

If the MP can justify 1st class travel on the train, for example, because it allows them to get more work done, then that’s fine. If not, that’s fine too. If the local party thinks it might be a better idea if the MP’s office and the local party office functions should be merged to rationalise stuff, then they’ll have the final say.

Equally, national level parties will have to seek money from local parties to carry out their functions. Thus, for example, if the national party wanted to spend money on TV adverts, they’d have to seek the money for it from local parties, probably via (revitalised) party conferences. Local parties might decide instead to approve alternative plans to set up Obama-style IT-based networks, and that would be up to it.

That’s all very well, and all done with the same money as was spent before, just with the decision-making power totally reversed by ’statute’.

Cynical readers will already however have spotted that, while it’s all very well to devolve power to local parties, this is hardly the same as devolving to local people; local parties are, after all, weak structures, peopled if they are peopled at all by self-selecting, self-referential nobodies with few brain cells to rub together, will run the argument. This argument will come, not least, from party HQs themselves desperate to retain the status quo of the power and money structure, and who are distrustful of the capacity of the ‘foot soldier’ activists).

That, after all, is what is writ large in both the parties’ ’motivational’ literature, and in the many central government documents, influenced by the policy wonksat HQ or at Downing Street – the view that local parties are a thing of the past, that local politics can safely be done away with in favour of technocratic management of CLPs/Tory associations, where the only expectations are lip service to policy reviews and, more important, to campaigning with HQ-sanctioned leaflets, HQ-sanctioned IT set-ups which alienate people ‘on the doorstep’ because they’ve been created by people who’ve never been ‘on the doorstep and don’t realise asking questions of people while ticking off their answers on a pre-arranged coded list is not the same as talking to people like they are people.

The point is that, with a reversal of the financial flow, with what a local party gets dependent on their membership, local parties will suddenly become different beasts.

With money comes the capacity to ‘do stuff’, and combined with a new motivation within existing membership to draw in members, there would almost certainly be a rapid rise in membership, as people actually start to see a point – a decision making point- to being in their party of choice.

They suddenly get not just the opportunity to decide, as a member, on how the MP should use their money (or whether to give them any at all), but also to decide, for example, on whether the party, and by newly re-established link, the area as a whole, will be best served by the state funding going into a dozen leaflets, or into a playscheme the Council won’t pay for.

And suddenly, the way opens up for parties to become mass parties again. At local level, people will engage because engagement matters, and it won’t be long before there is a much smaller distinction between ‘the party’ and the people those parties have, rhetorically, at least, been set up to serve.

As set out above, as membership increases in this way, so will the opportunity to legislate on the permitted ratio of private donations to local funding, as the membership fee total will be counted into this whole. As membership grows therefor, so does democratic entitlement, whereby you don’t have to be called Ashcroft to have your say on what your party does with the cash.

In terms of the Labour party, the obvious additional opportunities will lie in the possibility of renewing the link with trade unions, via membership fees, and in some cases starting even to develop the local party organically as the ‘workers’ council’ in the way aspired to years ago but never really attained because of the very constraints on power, from above, that I have set out above.

So that’s the plan.  Of course, I don’t see the ‘powers-that-be’ leaping up and down with joy at the thought of having their money removed and given to someone else to decide how they might spend it if they behave themselves, but I’d like to see – through the Compass scheme – a challenge laid down to them.

The challenge is best in question form, and reflects in part this useful critique of ‘freedom’ (and allied concepts) set out by Dave.

‘So what do you have against a proposal to actually do what, in paper after paper after speech after speech after speech you have said you want to do – to empower people?

‘What do you have against a proposal to hand over power in a way which does not cost more money, and which comes without any of the financial and legal hangups that come when you try to ‘empower communities’ through supposedly allowing them influence on local public policy and local public spending, but in tautologous reality only allows them to do this if they tick YOUR boxes about what communities are, how they should behave, and how they should spend the money (another post to follow from me on the discursive complexities of how ‘empowerment’ is ‘disempowering’)?

‘What do you have against a real ‘freedom’ freedom to build parties anew, to build democracy? Are you scared of the power you’ll lose, or are you with us?’

I wonder if or what they’d answer.