The debate on primaries is no place for factions – this is about how we all adapt to a culture that’s outgrown us

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

There’s still a great deal of debate going on about primaries, and major differences are beginning to be drawn along seemingly factional lines.

Singing from the same songsheet, the supposed “radical” left arm of the party is reluctant to embrace the change.

John Harris is critical of the proposals, saying:

“Among Labour people, those who have advocated primaries in the past – including David Miliband, and the higher education minister David Lammy – are speaking out again. Now, the inevitable has happened: echoing a proposal first put forward in 2006 by that adventurous outrider Stephen Byers, the little-known but vociferous Labour MP Tom Harris wants to use some kind of mass national primary to select the party’s next leader.”

Meanwhile, Neal Lawson has said:

“The introduction of primaries now would sound the death knell of Labour as a party of any democratic meaning whatsoever.”

Tribune, in its recent editorial, wrote:

“Mr Miliband reaches out to the party by asking it to be swallowed up by primaries and mass invitations to non-party members to participate. It is a self-fulfilling prophesy on the ultimate end of Labour as a political party and institution.“

David Miliband, David Lammy and Jessica Asato have each rebutted the nay-sayers’ doubts one by one.

But the debate about primaries must be kept faction-free. It is not a matter for left and right to disagree. It’s not about ownership of public services or the relationship between the market and the state.

Rather, it is about how we will adapt as an organisation to a contemporary culture in which people already require more informal and casual engagement. That change has already been made, over years of lifestyle developments, and – contrary to what Neal Lawson has written – the death knell for the party will be sitting on our hands and allowing this momentum for open involvement to run away from us. Labour will only become less and less relevant if we don’t respond to how people live their lives.

That’s why, in spite of being a Compass member and a fan of John Harris, I wrote in support of the Progress campaign for Labour primaries:

“I have never felt more involved in a political campaign than in the weeks and months before Super Tuesday. The people I worked alongside in Brooklyn came out to have their voices heard, working tirelessly on cold mornings and bleak nights to influence a process and to shape history from the earliest opportunity. What I saw inspired a movement, and I’ve never seen democracy work better. Labour needs that inspiration now. We need to energise our party, but more importantly than that we need to open our tired structures to the voices of the under-represented. Primaries will not solve everything, but they are the purest way to begin.”

Perhaps the differences are more generational than factional. Chuka Umunna – himself very active in Compass and considered to be broadly on the left of the party – Tweeted earlier today that he is in favour of primaries and I know a number of other young Labour members who feel the same.

Few of us who have been brought up under the culture of instant gratification and with communication and engagement at our fingertips want to spend Wednesday evenings in stuffy town halls, thrashing out the arcane and archaic party rules, motions and amendments. And few of us will be inclined to vote for someone who has only been selected by a handful of party individuals under that system. Culture has outgrown our party structures – now we have to react.

One way of doing that, of encouraging people into our movement rather than blocking their route, is to hold multi-cultural events, with music and art alongside political speeches, at open political fundraisers and supporter recuritment events. Such events offer an insentive for people to show up and to get involved on an itinerary that more suits their lives and that offers something to them.

Another way is to show people that we are listening to their calls, and that we will find a new way to reenfranchise the disilusioned, a new way to give people a say.

If we don’t open up our processes to as many people as we can – thousands of people who want to support Labour but who are not currently inclined to get directly involved in a way that is relevant to them – how can we realistically purport to being the party of the people?

Open primaries are not for factions. But they are critical for the future of Labour.