Collins Review – opportunities to be seized and traps to be avoided

Ray Collins has a tough assignment.  But, based on my consultations with party and trade union members across the West Midlands region over the last month, there are opportunities to be seized – as well as traps to be avoided.

The risks are easily identified.  The party coffers may take a hit, as large trade union donations dwindle.  Too few trade unionists paying the levy will take up the membership offer.  The historic link between party and unions will weaken.

Proposals for reform often initially trigger reasons for not reforming.  And in our often strangely conservative party – when it comes to rules and structures  –  there can be no surprise that the reasons for not doing this often spring to mind more readily than the reasons for doing it.

At many meetings, I encounter the ‘if it isn’t broke, why fix it?’ question.  But what is ‘it’?

If it’s the party as a broad-based movement founded in local communities  and speaking authentically on behalf of working people, can we say everything’s fine?  Some strong local parties can claim it is.  Others, now reliant on a small inner core of activists, would feel differently.  But what all can agree on is that we could do it better.

If it’s the relationship between the party and the trade unions, can we say everything’s fine? Maybe yes in a CLP with a robust development plan which includes a number of unions, and which fuels local community campaigns.  But, more likely, no, where a small local party has a development plan comprising one sheet of A4 which is in a file somewhere.

There is an opportunity for these reforms to broaden the base of Labour in local communities and so help both parties and unions build on, and extend, what works.

Ray may also wish to put a case for these reforms being the start of a process, rather than the conclusion to a problem.  Here, there are three significant opportunities.

We may be able to transform our idea of membership.  Collective strength is in Labour’s DNA; but collectivism has changed across society.  It isn’t in card carrying and going to meetings.  It exists in new forms of networks, not necessarily ones which are face to face.  Both party and union networks now need to embrace what people understand by membership and collective action.

We may be able to strengthen the ties across our Labour family.  In virtually every constituency there are more trade unionists contributing to the party than there are party members.  All are part of the Labour family.  But most are distant relatives.  If in the future we can increase the focus on the issues that unite all sections of the family, instead of on the structures that divide us, it would be to the benefit of all.

We may be able to bridge the disconnection that undermines politics.  All of us who spend regular time on the doorsteps know the scale of this challenge.  There’s a trust deficit, even bigger than the budget deficit. Political language can seem disconnected from the everyday world.  If the voice of working people is louder within our party, we will be closer to speaking a common language which will be more readily understood.

Getting the structure right isn’t a sufficient condition for getting the politics right – but it may prove a necessary one.

James Plaskitt was MP Warwick & Leamington from 1997-2010