The questions Ed Miliband must answer

By Daniel Blaney

On 10 June 2010, the day after nominations for the leadership of the Labour Party closed, Ed Miliband addressed supporters in Leeds. In claiming he was best placed to take the party forward he was bold in acknowledging recent mistakes. For example, he criticised a “culture in our party that stifled dissent and debate”.

The significant constitutional change under Tony Blair was never clause four, as the media always suggest. It was the complete transformation of the party’s democratic policy making procedures. ‘Partnership in Power’ transferred almost all policy making to the National Policy Forum. Deals between the front bench and the trade unions enabled a policy document to be agreed at the Forum which was then presented to conference as a fait accompli. No mechanism existed for conference to amend the documents. Party members complained conference had become a rubber-stamping exercise and felt disenfranchised.

There is no doubt that these internal rule changes that undermined party democracy were a disaster. Only ‘contemporary’ resolutions could be voted on at conference after 1998, and only if that contemporary resolution was voted a priority. Over the subsequent years, the leadership failed to take account of conference resolutions on pensions, on housing, on rail, on manufacturing and on employment rights and the government suffered as a result.

The ability to debate resolutions was stifled to such an extent that the conference arrangements committee regularly ruled resolutions as not ‘contemporary’ on completely artificial grounds. In some years when Iraq should have dominated conference, the conference arrangements committee succeeded in removing the issue entirely from the conference agenda. When Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair there was a simple suggestion to overcome the problems of conference resolutions being ignored: abolish them.

We now need to return to proper democratic structures, with the ability of local parties to table resolutions that can be voted on and become party policy. That is how we brought about a minimum wage, all-women shortlists and many great things the Labour Party has done in its history. It is how we can develop a radical principled manifesto for the next Labour government to implement. It is the only way to persuade members, who inevitably have moments of frustration from time to time, that they can have their say in party policy.

Interestingly the 1998 overhaul of party democracy affected one current leadership candidate in particular. For a number of previous years, ordinary members had voted a very popular backbench MP, Diane Abbott, to the National Executive Committee where she tirelessly defended party democracy and the rights of members. The overhaul removed the right of MPs, and therefore Diane, to stand for the constituency section of National Executive Committee in future.

Another candidate has also been publicly associated with party’s rule changes, and so it is vital rigorous questions are put to Ed Miliband now on the nuts and bolts of party reform. Does he support the return resolutions voted on by conference? Does he believe conference should be able to amend drafted policy documents? His record is not promising as it was Ed Miliband himself who proposed to conference in 2007 that the remaining contemporary resolutions should be abolished. It is therefore vital we know exactly what Ed Miliband stands for on the issue of party democracy.