Five ways Labour needs to change at the roots

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Melissa Benn has written an insightful piece for Comment is Free on how Labour needs to change if it is to better engage and involve the 15,000-odd new members it has gained since the general election, and those who feel otherwise on the periphery.

I’ve spoken with Melissa, and we agree on many of the general ways about how the party needs to open up. And she kindly quoted some of my thoughts in her piece.

For a long time on LabourList, we’ve been talking about the need for the party to be more interesting to new members. It doesn’t show good organisational or human interaction to merely welcome members new and old to the party at stuffy, stymied meetings about rules or to simply present a bag of leaflets for members to deliver. That’s not what this party is about, and it’s not why people join. Oona King told me that approach put her off for eight years.

And as I wrote in March last year:

“In these localities where Labour policies truly find delivery, our organisation can be a barrier to participation rather than a gateway to it…The result is that new voices are crowded out by the same hands that built a commanding but controlling party structure in the 1990s. Members and delegates leave meetings feeling more frustrated than empowered and our movement for constant progress can feel stagnant even to those directly involved…We must take a risk on renewal at our grassroots. That means reengaging young people in our CLPs by allowing them a greater stake in their constituencies and a bigger say in how they’re run.”

People join the Labour Party because of a sense of social injustice, because they care about their communities, or because they believe in the cause and want to help contribute to it in some other way, either through policy discussions or through rolling their sleeves up in their own back yard. So the first thing we as an organisation should do is to ask: “what would you like to bring to the party, and how would you like to run campaigns for local action?”

Immediately after the general election, Jessica Asato wrote about the clear connection between our party’s best local campaigns and success in the general election. And the point is that, when good, vibrant, strong campaigns in local commnunities deliver real results for people, those success bring with them the byproduct electoral victory too – though that is not their purpose. As some of the leadership candidates seem to understand, we can achieve real change even in opposition, and redesign the party as a campaigning force.

Melissa’s five ways Labour needs to change are a good place to start this discussion, though this is a debate that is potentially limitless and should continue for some time.

But my sense is that local parties should be exactly that – local, and unique to the communities in which they are embedded. So there is no prescriptive method for what should be done, and ideas for how to renew will be numerous and circumstantial. But based on Melissa’s points, here are some of my own ideas:

1 – Less formal and more flexible organisation:
I went to my first Labour Party meeting in December 2008, and it was frankly disheartening. Until the campaigning for the local and general elections began after the council selections, and we started talking about the roles different people would take in the campaign, I was frustrated more often than I was inspired; the meetings felt like stagnant talking shops. Perhaps that’s the nature of the beast, but I’d like to see a more permanent campaigning culture become the norm, not the exceptioon. Some branches or CLPs may already do this, but how about holding some branch meetings on a Saturday, having an hour’s campaigning in the ward followed by the procedural aspects over a more informal session that could also involve lunch, drinks and general political discussion?

2 – Issues-based meetings, not process based meetings:
Of course, I appreciate that in a democratic party, we need to have votes and motions and proposals and seconders. But that’s not what everyone joins the Labour Party for, and it shouldn’t be the sole means of contact local parties have with their members or supporters, which it is too often at present. As Melissa says: “Local parties should hold regular and well-publicised meetings on local and national issues: housing, local schools, who should be mayor of London, antisocial behaviour, Cameron and Clegg. Get in engaging, lively speakers. Ban the dull ones.” These meetings should be open to the public where possible, and based on local issues that people have a stake in and a say over, not just on the merits or not of renewing Trident.

3- Pluralist, local action
When I walked into a Brooklyn office three years ago to volunteer on the Obama campaign for the first time, I was given the tools and autonomy to go out and connect with people myself. I had no previous connection with the campaign or the Democrats, but I was trusted to go and talk to people on local issues. We need that openness and trust here in the Labour Party. CLPs should, where possible, find the resources for shopfront campaign offices, where people can walk in off the street, members or not, to help out on the campaigns which affect that area. As Caroline Badley has developed in Birmingham Edgbaston, with sensational results, we need to open up to non-party members who care about their communities, and who want to campaign on vibrant causes. That doesn’t always require big money, it just requires energy and dedication. The general election campaign shows Labour still has that in droves.

4 – More sociable times
Melissa makes this suggestion on the specific involvement of women, but more generally involvement in the party is currently limited because of time constraints on people’s busy lives. My branch meetings and GCs are held on Wednesdays; same day as the Champions League. Many other branch meetings are held on Friday nights, which does nothing to help include young members or supporters. Saturdays and Sundays are one possible answer; combining social events with local meetings is another.

5 – Reconnect ground and air campaigns:
Paul Richards wrote during the election that there were two campaigns, completely distinct in nature and character: the brilliant ground war based on activism, and the party’s less successful air war, directed from the top. But, as Melissa writes, this is also about policy creation. The grassroots recently felt a “fatal disconnect” from the leadership, whereby people – supporters – often felt powerless to impact on the party’s general direction. Reinstating many of the democractic elements of conference would be a start, but a showpiece event once a year is not enough. The new leader – and Harriet Harman as deputy – should look again at all forms of party involvement on policy and strategy; not through motions submitted by branches or an impenetrable National Policy Forum, but by a more dynamic system, perhaps online or by expanding Membersnet.

These are just a few of my own thoughts for some of the ways the party can feel alive again to the many new members and those who have lost touch with the party on the ground. Labour exists to govern, to help its constituents. But while we are in opposition, we can indeed become a living, breathing movement again, characterised by inclusivity and openness – and the local action those characteristics enable.