We’ve had our Glasnost – now it’s time for the wall to come down

By Joe Caluori / @croslandite

The criticism most commonly levelled at the current leadership election is that it is more about the party talking to itself rather than talking to the voters – whose judgment on us in May precipitated this election. This is a red herring in so far as it would be a very strange leadership campaign indeed that didn’t attempt to appeal in the first place to those people who have a vote. In any case, one would hope that the Labour movement wouldn’t choose a leader who demonstrably had little appeal to the country at large.

However, one area of debate in this election that will assuredly be a total turnoff for the public (and for many party members and trade unionists) but is arguably of the greatest importance, will be discussion of what internal party reforms are needed.

We all care passionately about policy issues – we want a fair chance to have our say, and we want to know exactly how much regard the leadership have to pay to our views once they’ve been through the process, and the processes have to be right. But cards on the table comrades – amongst us there are incorrigible geeks who regard quibbling over internal structures as being somewhere between a pleasant hobby and a fearsome monotheistic religion. So when we talk about party reform – eyes on the prize comrades, because there are people watching.

Before the deputy leadership election it often felt that party members were a problem to be managed by HQ rather than an asset to be treasured. During the campaign in 2007 the balance tipped back as candidates appealed for votes in our first internal election of real note for 13 years. The NPF had some doughty champions, recently Alon Or-bach springs to mind – and combined with the party’s new found willingness to embrace social networking and blogging – albeit in a stiff, awkward cuddle, there was a feeling that we were beginning to have our Glasnost – but the wall never came tumbling down. Indeed, despite the changed atmosphere, the first thing Gordon did on party reform was to effectively abolish contemporary resolutions at Annual Conference.

The challenge to leadership contenders is to finish the job – to reform policy making and decision making so the process is open, fair and democratic. But there are distractions with threaten to derail real reform.

There are already signs that debate over reform is focusing on peripheral issues – solutions looking for problems and craven box ticking. Firstly, the whole issue over an elected chair is an unecessary sideshow. We will elect a Leader, we have an elected deputy leader, we have the NEC. The controversial chair role was invented by Blair for Charles Clarke, born out of an expression of insecurity. It won’t hurt the party to have an elected chair, but how much value will it add? If it’s about finding a role for Jon Cruddas then he could as well stand for the NEC and be made permanent chair of the NEC for the term of his office with a rule change.

Likewise there is tokenism as there was in 2007, such as the suggestion by David Miliband that the leader of the labour group on the LGA should sit in the shadow cabinet. Does that mean he will be a cabinet minister after the election? What about the shadow secretary of state for communities and local government? Again, it isn’t a terrible idea, but it doesn’t reach the core issue, which is how create a party in which we listen and debate each other without fear, without using the rule book as a weapon. Who does what-where is not the game we should be playing. We have to learn the lesson of 2007 and walk the talk. This is our chance to achieve a lasting settlement between the leadership and the membership, and if we fudge it again then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.