Giving power to, or taking power away?

That's the question when addressing the party reforms being put forward by the new leadership of the Labour Party.

The Partnership in Power process focuses on engaging members on policy issues and coming to a consensus across the party. The reform proposals rightly point to the need to do more to engage with members locally which is welcome.

However there are some key issues which are problematic. The proposals would change the way that so called 'contemporary issues' are dealt with. At the moment affiliates (such as UNISON) and CLP's (the labour party in your constituency) can submit motions to the annual conference on issues arising after the policy forum process has been completed. It's these contemporary motions that has seen the government defeated on health last year and council housing before that. Under the new proposals we would still be able to submit things but instead of being voted on they would then just go into the forum process for the next year. This takes away the only real opportunity we have as the membership to democratically decide what the policy is.



The other issue is the proposal to put the final manifesto out to a ballot of all members. This take it or leave it ballot has few benefits and would create many problems. From our point of view it would cost us a fortune to conduct a ballot, and just before a general election this would be just what the party doesn't need. There are also some real risks for the party, what if there was a significant 'no' vote? Or even having the manifesto rejected? And what if groups of members or affiliates campaigned for a no vote, with a mass vote a messy row would be much worse there than at conference!


We really need to avoid a messy argument this year at conference, so I hope ongoing negotiations come up with a solution which avoids that. If we don't and it comes onto the conference floor it will make for an interesting time.