Though Cowards Flinch

Well, alright, not all that is wrong.

But in the context of this excellent ongoing discussion about the future of the Labour party and its membership (to which I’ve not yet contributed sufficiently as result of lack of clear head), I found this little phrase from our friend Tom Harris - in an otherwise harmless enough post – illuminating:

I vividly remember visiting a Network Rail signal control centre as the rail minister and then meeting the local Labour MP and some of his activists and having my photo taken with them outside the station.

‘His activists?’   For fuck’s sake, Tom, it makes the Labour party sound positively feudal.

There’s a lot of good discussion bubbling along about how the Labour grassroots might, or might not, take back control of the Labour party and set it in a more socialist direction.  I’m hopeful.  As part of this, though, we need to get to the heart of what is wrong with a lot of local Labour parties at the moment – a culture of absolute deference to the MP, and more broadly to the PLP.

I’ve got a lot of time for my MP, who does all the things a hardworking local MP should do.  But I know that she knows that I have my own mind, that I am no-one’s property, and that I don’t think any member of the local party should be. 

MPs are (or should be) party delegates; they are people local parties send to parliament, not simply to do all their bidding certainly, because that removes the sense of trust and confidence in their independence of thought and action that you put in them when you select them, but whom you can rightly except to report back to the party, and where appropriate seek views and guidance from that party.

There has been a significant shift away from this conception of what an MP is, and I would contend that it is this cultural shift toward an unseemly (in socialist terms) deference which is one of the most damaging shifts in the party in the last 30 years.

I have set out here how I think, organizationally, a shift back towards member power might be brought about.   But this can only work if, at the same time, all of us in the Labour Party recognise and acknowledge openly that MPs are not demi-gods.

And I’m sure that Tom, with whom I’ve just had quite a civilised engagement over high-speed rail, will think I’m overreacting to the wording of his speed-written post.  And yes, it is just a word. 

But I’m no-one’s activist.  I’m a socialist.