By Graham Hall
The debate that is now open amongst strands of the Labour Party is one of US-style primaries to elect PPCs. I've heard the argument eloquently argued for at many meetings, most notably those of Prospect.
Again, the John Smith Memorial Lecture by David Miliband featured the same argument. To those who argue for such a system, the logic is obvious. It states that Labour (and all other parties) have dwindling memberships and those memberships don't always represent their area and thus we end up with parties selecting prospective candidates based on the votes by only a few hundred people in some cases. Logical yes, but every time I hear the argument I keep thinking, 'why should people be a member of the party when selecting a PPC is one of the few real powers they have left?'
I am extremely dubious about the real merits of a 'primary' style of selection for the main reason that the vast majority of people don't actually vote for a candidate but a party. Labour members don't pick MPs, we merely vote for our party's selection. The average person who has no real inclination to join a party will vote with their own feelings on the day, but I honestly don't think they decide to stick with our go with another party based on the personality of the candidate.
The whole purpose of joining a party is for people to feel like they actually have a say (even if a small one) in the party's affairs and choices. To merely ask people to register as a 'friend' or 'supporter' of a party defeats the whole object of being a member. I can hypothetically campaign seven days a week for the party, form a close relationship with my PPC or MP and crucially give my hard-earned money to the party I support.
If somebody else merely has to register support of the party and do nothing else in a financial, emotional or physical way to help the party then I believe it is wrong that they will then have just as much power as myself and other local members when it comes to selecting our candidate.
There has to be more investment in the process than merely registering with a party. And what is to stop a well organised group of people from registering with a party they oppose merely to stop a certain candidate being selected in a safe seat?
I can see the logic in wishing to maximise support for parties, and I really can't criticise those who wish to expand participation in democracy at a local level. But there has to be a better and fairer way than this. If people aren't enthused by local affairs then I'm of the strong belief that it is because they actually aren't that interested in the first place. Letting people who don't feel the desire to actually become a member of a party to have a say in party affairs is actually un-democratic in my opinion and will harm the already strained relationship between the membership and the Parliamentary Party.
If people care enough then they should show it by becoming a member. Because if I was to have just as much right to vote for my PPC without being a member, I believe I'd have every right to wonder what the point in being a member would actually be!
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I was speaking to a Labour regional organisor recently and they expressed concern with the falling membership they were seeing attempts to influence candidate selection for council wards. Some wards were experiencing large numbers of new members signing up a little while before candidate selection procedures started.
Although this was for Council elections, I suspect the same could be easily true for all candidate selections.
I'm not sure what the answer is but Labour friends and primaries do not appear to be it.
Thanks for the kind words. Like Jessica, I support primaries alongside PR (Jenkins' proposals to be precise). I think the public want their votes to count but they also want a choice over their local representative. "They're all the same" was a phrase often heard before the Telegraph lifted the lid on MPs' expenses partly because of the obsequious obedience to the whip that so many showed. Candidates should be loyal to the party platform on which they seek office but when the party leadership is pushing policies that were not in the manifesto (eg top up fees), the MPs have a responsibility to break ranks. As Theo argued so clearly, primaries help reduce the power of the whips.
Where I completely agree with you is that the role of a party member has been degraded over time. We're not yet cash cows since the party is fairly poor and raising money from members. But as Nick Anstead and I argue in "The Change We Need" the relationship between party and member is definitely one way. There are a whole series of other reforms that would help including enabling channels for dissent and debate, rewarding hard work and entrepreneurialism, and continuing the process of giving supporters the tools for self-organisation.
And a question for Alex Smith - could Labour List start doing more polls as Ralph suggests? Perhaps you could team up with the NEC group who polled recently on expenses who conducted an online
Congratulations, by the way, for provoking one of the most intelligent arguments on Labour List that I've yet seen.
Will
Being a member of the Labour Party has to be about more than being used as cheap slave labour during the elections.
I am guessing (and so might be wrong) that many elected MP's consider thier members a pain and undue inconvenience.
As for reducing the powers of members in the party, that displays the leaderships greed for power.
This is a shame. But in the end ignorance has harmed our would be leaders as they are completely lost on policy and out of touch and so are paying the price for excluding the party from politics. After the expenses, after the ridiculous policy announcement and U-turns I think it is clear that they are completely inept low-lifes (due to the display and clear lack of morality).
After the General Election we (the whole party) need to get together and clean up our party and have a full debate (that means people having big meaningful conversations, which are not one-way to any MP's reading this) on how we protect and police our party from corruption, methods to increase our membership and local campaign methodology in re-engaging the public.
Labour home needs to be improved and membersnet has to allow real influential policy polling by members as at the moment it is a joke.
Because people work varied long hours an online method that permits them to have a say I think would go a long way.
I think primaries will increase celebrity style "characters", but I won't lose any sleep over it as has already been said we already have celebrities involved....
Look at Glenda Jackson or Boris Johnson - they were both "celebrities" before they hit the political scene. Did they use their profile and media connections to help their campaigns? Undoubtedly. Did they face Primaries? No.
I think the solution to what you call 'celebrity syndrome' is simply to increase the level of public campaigning: make sure that constituents are well informed, know the issues, know where the candidates stand. And I don't see how you can do that if you keep the selection process closed to local groups and party headquarters.
It's fundamentally about engagement. The more democratic and representative a system is, the more the public engage. The more engaged the public are, the "better" their decisions will be, and the more responsive the elected politicians will become. Going way back up the thread to my original comment, remember the evidence: public contests DO produce public participation and increased engagement.
Surely if the CLP membership has dropped to a pathetic level then it indicates that there is no support for the Labour party in the constituency and so the CLP should be closed. Why "throw good money after bad", so to speak?
Taking away a CLP power to choose their PPC is effectively the same as closing it down. So why not simply close down the CLPs that have low membership?
The party leadership is now only interested in the middle-class, middle-England voters. It is no longer the party of the traditional working class, unfortunately leaving that vacuum to be filled by neo-fascism.
How would primaries get around the celebrity syndrome? You only have to look at reality television to realise that some of societies less well endowed in the common sense department are capable of swaying opinion, whether positively or negatively. Is there not a case where someone could put themselves forward who is unsuitable for political life, who really wouldn't achieve much given the position and ultimately lead to certain aspects of political life becoming a bigger farce than it is percieved to be already could be elected solely through a popularity vote?
Putting fundraising caps and retricting spending would benefit the present system, as it would level the playing field considerably between the haves and have nots, but with an individual candidate, again coming from the celebrity angle I suppose, it is not all about the money. Influence can be gained through knowing the right people and appearing in the public eye more often than your political opponent. Political advantage would favour those who already have careers in publishing or the media, far more than it does now. Is there an solution to prevent that happening, or is it one of the negative aspects of primaries?
Very much like the silver bullet analogy by the way.
Let's get real - since when did NewLabourToryLite's Brown and Blair show EVER listen to it's members?
If you have paid a private subscription you stand no chance - they don't even listen to the unions that are silly enough to go on throwing large sums of money at this gang of dead-in-the-water right-wing Champagne Socialists.
Don't believe me? then just to jog your memory:
Iraq?
Creeping privatisation of the NHS??
Refusal to renationalise the railways, despite the pigs ear the TOCs are making of it?
As a former party member, I wonder, if I was still throwing good money after bad, if they would take into consideration my distaste for the twice-disgraced, pompous, arrogant Mandy being bought back into the top of the party?. I know many Labour and ex-Labour friends who detest this man, and now he affects the "grand manner" he looks and sounds risible
On one hand information is fed into our homes via TV, the internet etc so we don’t need to attend meetings and therefore join parties as they did in the 1950s.
Our lives have also changed with people travelling further to work means we have less time in the evenings. Also society changes in the 1950s it was acceptable for many men to simply leave their wives at home looking after the children while they pursued interests outside the home, this is no longer the case.
On the other hand there has been a relentless control of parties by the executives. The media jump on any sign of disunity, which has stifled debate. Therefore many people have given up on parties, opting for single issue causes.
The US primary model simply doesn’t fit; the excitement in the US was caused by a grass roots campaign which seemed to empower people, and the timescale of the process which built up momentum. This wouldn’t work in the UK as the selection procedure would be a one off event, with no national bandwagon.
Parties do need to engage with supporters who don’t or can’t attend regular meetings. Social networking would seem to provide a good model, where someone could join a party and be kept informed of locals issues, interact with members etc. Yes there would be a two tier membership with traditional members shouldering a lot of the organisational and logistic work. However, it would be important that the ‘friends’ were not treated like second class citizens.
On your point that hard-working members lose their right to select candidates in primaries, well you could get round this by ensuring that there is a knock-out round that only Labour members are allowed to participate in so that the list which goes to the public has the broad support of members locally. Or if that's too cumbersome, why don't we just increase the rights of members to influence policy development? I certainly didn't join the Labour party to select a candidate (I didn't have a clue how the internal structures worked, I think I probably thought all candidates were chosen by the leader or a recruitment panel or some such thing), no I joined because I wanted to be part of a movement of socialist ideas and ideals. Maybe we need to use that as the basis for encouraging people to join the party, rather than the right to vote once in a blue moon for a candidate?
The first is - this is ALREADY a problem. It's not something new that primaries would create: our rules for Party Selection contests are ridiculously liberal - there are zero spending caps, zero fundraising caps.. in other words, if you're very rich and want to be selected by your local party, there is nothing to stop you from using all the money and influence at your disposal. That's the situation "as-is".
The second is - It doesn't have to be that way. We can introduce spending and fundraising caps to go along with primaries, and have them monitored by the Electoral Commission, just as we do with all existing election campaigns.
In fact, I would argue that even if we don't introduce primary elections, then we still need to tighten the rules on spending for local party selection contests... since they're just waiting to be abused.
As for bribery and high-level political corruption, that's a totally different matter. I think if you moved to a system of smaller donations from a larger number of people to fund political campaigns - as Obama did - then you will to some extent mitigate those growing problems of 'big money'. You might argue that Primary Elections, by including a larger number of people, might lead to an increase in small donations.... but I don't want to pretend primaries are the silver bullet to all our problems.
Until MPs get job descriptions and employment contracts the only thing that actually matters is which party forms the government.
I only communicate with my MP to tell him how he should be ashamed to support this government, ask him why he needs £400 expenses for food, and tell him how stupid he is to support ID cards. He doesn't represent me in any way at all and I resent him being paid as if he does.
I get better answers using FoI than asking him for anything.
Again, may seem like I have the intellect of the average dung beetle (which my wife would probably agree with considering my mood today) but what if the open primary is adopted, how would a candidate stand from a financial point of view? What I mean by that is what is to stop someone with a huge amount of money and influence being able to put forward their case better than a less priveledged candidate, even if the less priveledged one has better ideas, is more politically aware and could do the job twice as well as the other?
And how would bribery within Parliament be tackled? Would primaries make any difference to this?
How exactly does a Party Whip conduct their bullying? By threatening to have a given MP removed from the Party - or have them "de-selected". If MPs were chosen by an open primary, subject to the public - rather than by a cabal in central office and a few local party activists - then the MP could turn around to the Whip and say, "Well, sorry, but I was chosen by my constituents; not by your friends in the Party. You can't threaten me."
In short, open primaries would go a long way to de-fanging the whips. And hopefully, would lead to more honest and open voting on issues like 10p, Iraq, 90-Days, etc.
For instance, look at some of the things that have gone to vote in Parliament. They have been pushed through with bribery and bullying, and those who do not fall in with what the Party thinks is the way forward are not debated, they are labeled as rebels. You'd be hard pushed to find a member of the public who wholly agrees with the abolished 10p tax, but if a Labour MP puts that view forward, they are a rebel.
Voting on personality, on how well a candidate can perform may well involve voters more in the actual election of an official, but what then? And it is the what then that turns people off voting in the first place in my opinion.
In Iowa, a state with a population of just 3 million, the Democratic Caucus last year drew participation from about 240,000 people - 8% of the population. In the UK, a country with a population of over 60 million, the Labour Party has membership of under 170,000 - or 0.2% of the population.
Given that caucusing in Iowa involves not just showing up to vote - but standing in cold winter school gymnasiums and town halls for several hours, and going through an archaic and elaborate system of voting which involves standing in groups and publicly declaring your support... given this, WHAT exactly is it that explains the 40-fold difference between Labour Party membership and Iowa Caucus participation?
It is simple: public contests produce public participation. And if the Labour Party really, truly, believes in social democracy and civic participation - then we really have no option but to begin the implementation of Open Primaries.
You are absolutely right that the labour party would benefit immensely from my input - but I don't think they would see it like that.
Fortunately my constituency will be ditching labour next year, and I will do what ever I can to ensure that they never return.
The 200 threshold you hypothetically suggest could cause massive disharmony in parties whereby a constituency with 195 members loses power whilst one with 210 retains it. Its too vague of a threshold (whatever the number may be) and could cause massive inconsistencies in selection.
I truly am in favour of more democracy and greater representation at local level, but I honestly think a change to PR is more important than how parties select their candidates.
Primaries in the US are (as you say) a different matter, when registering could potentially give a person a say in who is President. I don't think the same enthusiasm will be invoked over the right to select a PPC some how!
The vast majority of people just want their vote on election day to mean something, and I believe most people vote for party and not candidate and probably aren't greatly fussed who the candidate is.
So, we should allow people's voices to be heard on election day by having a fairer voting system. Changing how parties select their PPC's is not the way forward for me, and will only further antagonise hard-working members of local parties who will rightfully feel they will lose real say in who represents them. We also risk the introduction of celebrity style politics whereby any well known figure can woo a local community and win selection without having to actually impress the people who will actually end up working locally for him or her.
If we stick with the present system, we're going to keep on getting more of the same.
As regards the "kind" of person, well, I'd settle for anyone who had a set of principles and stuck to them. I *don't* expect always to agree, or for them to always "represent" me, and I certainly don't think they should be doing the job of the Local Government Ombudsman or other chasing-up of perceived ills: I do expect that the position they take when soliciting my vote should be truly what they believe and intend to do.
The late Bernie Grant was such an individual, who was enormously respected even when people strongly disagreed with him. Sadly, his replacement who many felt was to some extent foisted on an unwilling constituency, is not.
Bad for the party, but probably good for democracy/representation - which is more important to you?
Seeing crudas and co switch to support PR, it is clear that many people are more interested in their party than anything else - but hopefully that is only the unthinking and those who are only influenced by their own financial benefit.
We may end up with a bunch of celebrity politicians even worse than the current offenders, who enjoy the attention and like to put on a good show.....
I have my doubts about this...it's just to "USA" for me. I would rather we discussed how to increase our membership and talk about the kinds of people we want to return to Parliament.
How they got there might make a difference to how able they were to resist the bullying and bribery. But no single thing will fix this. I'd also like to see a right-of-recall, where MPs could be forced to resign with a by-election if they really pissed off the constituency.
I certainly agree that CLPs that can retain and, indeed, increase their membership should retain their right to select their own PPCs but, as I argue in a forthcoming pamphlet for Progress, where membership dips below a threshold (perhaps 200 members or less than 1% of Labour's support in the last general election), that CLP should be stripped of its right to select its own member with a primary election used to choose the candidate.
I think there is also a strong case for primaries for the selection of mayoral candidates (particularly London) where no system of membership selection has yet been set up. This would be a good way of engaging the public in a debate about what it wants from its Labour candidate.
What we should not do is adopt wholesale a "US-style primary." We should, instead, devise our own system, with stringent spending caps and rules to avoid sabotage by ensuring that members of the public can only vote in one party's primary elections. Since David Cameron also supports the idea, legislation may therefore be the way forward.
The trouble is, Party politics - at Westminster, and increasingly at local level - is increasingly irrelevant to most people. That is a considerable challenge to for us to face up to. My own view is that *anything* that may increase the ability of our representatives to feel they have enough backing to stand up to "the machine" is at least worth a try.
I agree with the author, vut that just might be because I am uncomfortable with this type of change.
Who is going to pay for these Primaries? With membership declining and being made more redundent surely the money available will decline also.
I do want to see the public more involved in politics though....
My experience of local Labour meetings is that they can feel very cliquey and very exclusive. As a member, I've rarely felt my views were reflected, or that anyone was listening to me, really. So I'm in favour of any kind of opening up, and to be honest I feel that would probably increase my influence in the party, not dilute it. Some might suggest that's because I'm very New Labour, and perhaps in a minority.
I'm afraid though there is often a gap between the views of activists and of those of the public, and that's more damaging to Labour than it is to the public. We need to reduce that gap by moving towards the public, not waiting for them to come to us.
Many of us who are still Party members don't feel we have any say at all. It's one of the major reasons so many people have left - what is it: number of members down to around a quarter of what it once was, or something like that?
I agree about the risks of hostile takeover of fully open primaries, but I would like to see primaries, and I'd like them to be be open for participation by all current and former members. These are the people that have felt betrayed by nu-pseudo-Labour, and any attempt to rebuild a Labour Party must explicitly attempt to reach out to them!
Using Milliband's logic does this mean the local's should vote for who they want to be the BNP PPC or Plaid Cymru PPC as well, for example?
The only logic behind Milliband's posturing is he would like to see UK politics reduced to either Tory (Labour Lite) or Labour (Tory lite) PPCs. A rather dangerous political expedient I would suggest and unworkable in a society used to the plurality of its political parties.
Given the leakage of Labour votes and collapse of Labour's support; in five years, if 'Call Me Dave' of the 'Labour lite' party enacted this change, it could well be the Tories and the Libdems that are the only 'official parties' we could vote to Westminster.
'Call me Dave too' better think carefully about what he is wishing for.
Westminster's Augean Stables need a far bigger brush than this to re-establish public trust.