Labour needs a champion for members

The creation of a Members and Supporters Directorate is a chance to radically change the way the Labour Party is structured and how it treats those who volunteer their time, energy and money to support it.

To say that the Labour Party is somewhat over-structured is an understatement. Maintaining ward, GC and Borough-wide mechanisms takes a huge amount of members’ energy and good will at a time when we need these on the doorstep and in campaigns more than ever.

And the language and jargon around our structures has to be one of the biggest turn-offs for newer members. I’m proud to be on the EC of the GC and also on the EC of the LGC, but explaining all of this to a new member (as I did recently) starts making me feel altogether less proud.

Refounding Labour has started a conversation about more flexible ways of working and I’d like to see the new Director of Members and Supporters encouraging CLPs to adopt the mechanisms that work for them and that are most likely to deliver electoral and campaign success.

I’d like to see individual members being given more of a choice about how to engage, too. At the moment, a change of address (or boundary change) catapults members out of one constituency into another and it feels like starting again. But whether I live in Scunthorpe or Hampstead, the issues I care about are the same. Bringing members together through shared interests or professions may well uncover new talent, potential and campaigning zeal.

But flexibility in structures isn’t enough.

We need a cultural shift away from what can feel suspiciously like disdain towards members who “come out of the woodwork when it’s time to select a council candidate” and who “don’t know the system”.

I think it takes courage to show up to a meeting where you know no one and sheer bloody-mindedness to come to a second meeting if you suspect your presence is an inconvenience.

Our members win elections. They deliver leaflets, knock on doors, fund campaigns and stand for office. The commitment of some of my colleagues in Brent Central is frankly astonishing.

So if I could include one line in the job description for our new Director of Members and Supporters, it would be about being a champion for members. I think members deserve better than being offered the chance to attend meetings on dreary nights, huddled together with six or seven others in cold church halls, diligently nominating for a plethora of committees, the purpose of which only those ‘in the know’ really understand.

The Labour Party I see winning a majority in 2015 is one which truly values members and encourages them to get involved in ways that suit them, rather than ways which are structurally convenient. Our Director of Members and Supporters has it in their gift to make this a reality.

This post ispart of a series produced by LabourList and Labour Values.