Labour’s next General Secretary – we need radical change

By Graham Copp

Last year, when we elected Ed Miliband as our leader, we made an important decision about the kind of party we are. In a crucial intervention as ballot papers went out, Ed said: “I am the candidate who has the strength to say where we got it wrong – to challenge old orthodoxies, to challenge the previous generation’s assumptions, with the confidence to change to win. That’s what makes me the moderniser in this election.”

The leadership election cemented the idea that the Labour Party needed to modernise to regain the trust of the electorate.

This month, there will be another election which will have a profound effect on the future of the party – the election of a new General Secretary by the party’s NEC. The enormity of the decision at hand is second only to the leadership election for the future of the party, because getting the organisation right will be key to winning the next general election.

At the time of the last general election, I had the enormous privilege to help run Islington Labour Party’s campaign. After eight years in the wilderness, the council group won a landslide victory and both MPs won with increased majorities. Our campaign was based on the idea that if you engage with the electorate regularly on issues that matter – using understandable language – you can win.

A part of that was getting the policy right, but another equally important element was organisation. That meant making sure that people actually heard from their local councillors and candidates. It meant thinking of innovative ways to keep up a dialogue. It meant shaping the way our party worked around the needs of our electorate, and mobilising huge numbers of our supporters to make it happen.

Islington wasn’t alone. There are plenty of places where the local party has adapted the way it works locally to win election to make change. But local good practice is not good enough if it is not emulated right across the party.

We need the kind of radical change that came for the Democrats when Howard Dean was elected Chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2005. Taking principles from his presidential bid, he set out a strategy to re-build the party from the bottom up with new and young supporters, and to field viable candidates in each of the 50 states, not just the heartlands, using professional standards and techniques. The strategy set up the Democrats’ win in the 2006 mid-terms and was the foundation for Obama’s 2008 landslide.

With a Labour Party heavily in debt and still coming to terms with our loss one year ago, we need someone focused on nursing the machine back to health and who will put in place the strategy to win. That means that we need a General Secretary who can match the vision of the Islingtons, Hackneys, Edgbastons, Liverpools and so on. We need someone who can play the role that Howard Dean played for the Democrats.

The first test for the candidates for General Secretary is to set out what is their vision for a campaigning party to take us back to power.

How will they handle the outcomes of the Refounding Labour process and what will it mean in practical terms for the way we campaign?

What needs to change in order to build the infrastructure that deliver the sharpest campaigns, trains the best organisers and activists, and brings in a new generation of supporters to make a crucial difference at the next election?

How can we make new media a mainstream part of the way that we organise? The party is missing out on millions in donations and losing thousands of volunteers by failing to invest in infrastructure, strategy and training.

We need to know that there is a plan to retire the party’s debt and put our funding on a sustainable footing – and to do that without making the financial mistakes of the past by building new and innovative means to widen our donor base.

In short, we need a fresh pair of eyes to look at the party and make the changes that we need to take back power.

How we practically achieve a renewed party operation is not a question any one person has all the answers to, but at present there is a danger that we never get to have that debate and put the candidates to scrutiny before the NEC takes its decision.

While I have a preferred candidate, what I most care about is that a proper debate is had, and candidates given a chance to articulate their vision. The profoundly important decision, to be taken soon by the NEC, deserves nothing less.

Graham Copp is a Washington DC based freelance campaigner.