Though Cowards Flinch

Here is the letter I wrote to the Ed Balls campaign team about his article ‘Building our Party from the Ground Up’.  I’m grateful to Tim Flatman for bringing the article to my attention.

 Dear Ed

I am the leader of the Labour group on West Lancashire Borough Council, and know a thing or two about local Labour politics.  In what was my first year as leader, for example, we gained four council seats, and we defended a 6,000 parliamentary majority comfortably. This note is in a personal capacity.

I read your piece in Labour Values with enough interest to make me want to offer a comment or two.  It does not go far enough in setting out how the party needs to be restructured, but at least you are thinking about it, and your assessment of the disaffection on the party of many members, myself included, in respect of the policy process is accurate.

What is slightly disappointing is the early emphasis in your piece on the need for a Labour Party Diversity Fund which will in time ‘make a very real difference to those that need help to stand’ [presumably as candidates for parliament]. 

Don’t get me wrong, here.  I am fully behind greater diversity in parliament, and you are right that this diversity must extend beyond gender, however important that is.

The problem is that by talking up a specific funding mechanism like this you are talking up the primacy of the PLP in the labour movement and its structures.  This is not what we should be promoting.  What we should be promoting is the opportunity for (a larger, more diverse) membership to be involved in all aspects of the movement.  There should be nothing special about the PLP; it should just be part of the whole.   A Diversity fund will simply create wider routes to parliamentary elitism, which is precisely what you argue against in much of the rest of your piece.

So forget the Diversity Fund.  It’s a distraction from the main job of creating an open and democratic labour movement where all members do actually get a voice.  While you set out this ideal in principle, you stop short of what actually needs to be done in practice (though I accept that this is your ‘starter’ paper, and that it is aimed primarily aimed at encouraging feedback (like this?) on precisely this point.

So let me try and help.

There are two main ways in which we can enhance party/movement democracy and thereby increase our activist base. Both are radical but logical steps in power devolution.

First, the financial flows within the party need to be totally reversed.  All membership money and donations, barring a very small top slice for absolutely essential national administrative functions, should be distributed to CLPs (and possibly branch level in time) on a pro-rata basis according to membership numbers. The CLPs, thus resourced, will then be open to ‘business plans’ from MPs/PPCs and from regional party structures which they can approve, ask to see amended, or reject as they see fit.  In time, all parliamentary monies paid to MPs for running their constituency office should have automatic sequestration by CLPs and this should then be subject to the business planning process.  Beyond this, MP salaries might also be taken down the same route (as would councillor allowances), with local decisions made on how much MPs are worth paying (of course, we would expect to see Labour MPs form their own union to negotiate collectively).  

When in government, Labour should also consider passing legislation which imposes the same ‘bottom-up’ funding model on all political parties with parliamentary representation in respect of all monies paid by government to parties e.g. Short monies.  This funding pro-rata to membership, with memberships of the various parties then having real financial clout, will create a virtuous circle of local input-increased membership of parties-increased local input. 

Second, and closely related to the first radical step, the NEC should commence work with trade unions to encourage them to disaffiliate from Labour nationally and to re-affiliate to local parties, with member funding allocated to these local parties on the basis of satisfactory ‘business plans’ (an extension on the way in which unions already fund specific campaigns with MPs).  Again, this will enhance local input into decision making and increase union membership in time. 

These ideas are set out more fully here and here, and (in respect of legislation for all parties) here.

There are more thoughts on the localisation of PPC selection, which you also raise in your piece, here.

Best regards

Paul Cotterill

 ps         If you are to be sure of my vote, you will need to evidence development your political economy thinking beyond a narrow Keynesianism towards a more authoritative and distinctive questioning of assumptions about monetary systems and the whole illogic of the concept of fiscal deficit  in sovereign states with their own currency, and how you might bring this distinctive narrative to your leadership.   I recommend as a starting point these two papers, and my own short article for a more politicized take.

 However, your focus on the economic consequences of the coalition budget rather than LibDem treachery (real though that is) and defence of the public sector per se has scored you more ‘points’ with me on this area than other candidates.  On this matter I tend to agree with Sunny Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy.

 pps.      Your points scored on political economy are outweighed currently by your abhorrent take on immigration.