Tag: Labour Party

A THOROUGH CONSTITUTIONAL SETTLEMENT.

DON’T RUSH IT

There is a danger that an historic opportunity to reform our governance structures is going to be missed in the rush to settle the well named EVEL (English Votes for English Laws) issue.

We should take time, but not spin it out as some Labour Party politicians would wish.

I have tried to put together a whole range of issues that need to be addressed in a constitutional conversation with the people over the next 12 months. This could lead to legislation in the second year of the new Parliament. The purpose is to indicate the huge scope of change that politicians should be addressing rather than adopting our usual piecemeal approach to the subject.

I start from the lowest level of our democracy, on through what should happen in England and then deal with the House of Lords.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Every part of England should have a parish or community council with enhanced powers to deal with the really local issues that people care about.

Above them the whole of England should be run by unitary local authorities. It is unsustainable to have a situation in the North West for instance where Cheshire has four councils and Lancashire fourteen. The district/county model has always confused ratepayers and should have been swept away in 1974 at the time of the last reorganisation. This proposal would also deal with a major charge thrown against those of us who want a strategic tier for those parts of England that want it. The charge is that we would create more politicians. We would not. Hundreds of district councillors would be abolished. I don’t underestimate the political difficulty of combating the vested interests that will oppose this, but it should be tackled with courage.

REGIONAL/PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT.

The city regions have become embedded and have all party support. Elected mayors for the whole city regions would bring them the direct democracy and transparency that they sadly lack at the moment. However the City Regions do not cover the whole country. The priorities of major towns and whole swathes of suburban and rural England are excluded from the City Regions. Supporters of cities say outlying areas should become commuter dormitories for the cities. This is unacceptable. The Local Enterprise Partnerships do not have the scale to tackle the big challenge facing parts of England.

The challenge is this. Scotland will soon have powerful enhanced powers. London and the South East are on a different planet of prosperity. The other regions of England need strategic bodies to match Scotland and the South East. Here we encounter major problems. Regions are a dirty word to the Tories because they are the administrative divisions used by the European Union. The boundaries of regions also present problems. Cornwall does not want to be in a region with Gloucestershire. Oxford has nothing in common with Kent. Should Cumbria be in the North West or North East?

These identity issues play into the hands of centralising civil servants in London who are hostile to any devolution. They helped to prevent John Prescott giving real power to the North East in 2004 with the resulting defeat of the plan for an elected regional assembly. It is a major falsehood to suggest people rejected regionalism in 2004. They would have voted for it if it had meant real power.

We need the people’s consent to the regional map of England so the legislation should be permissive. So I would favour a Northern Council, an idea I will develop in a moment. The Midlands and East might want smaller strategic bodies. There could then be a tier of government covering the Thames Valley. The real South East could get together. Wessex could emerge once again and perhaps it is time to recognise Cornish identity.

Returning to my patch I would like to see a Northern Council. It would stretch from the Scottish Border to Hull and Crewe. It has the economy and population of some of the smaller states in Europe and should have powers to match. These would cover transport, health, strategic planning, skills, economic planning etc. They would get a block grant from London without strings and would benefit from resources currently going to Scotland as the Barnett Formula is replaced by the Scots raising their own taxes.

The Northern Council would be a democratic body with people elected from constituencies based on groups of Westminster seats.

WESTMINSTER

I don’t want to go into the complexities of EVEL here. My solution would be for the designation of truly English legislation that could only be voted on by English MPs. There would be less of it than Labour fear, but they are right to demand that EVEL is conditional on a wider constitutional settlement.

Wales and Northern Ireland should get more devolved powers.

The House of Lords should be reformed once and for all. It should have 75% of its members elected from the English Regions. 20% should be appointed to allow for doctors, scientists, engineers to give their expertise . Such people might be reluctant to stand for office. 5% should be reserved for the faith communities.

We live in a time when the old party structure is crumbling. The voting system needs to reflect this. All elections for local, regional and national government should be by single transferable vote.

These changes can be dismissed as too radical and too challenging for vested political interests. The alternative is to patch up our existing arrangements against a background of growing alienating of the people from their politicians.

Follow me @JimHancockUK

MILIBAND FLAT AND FORGETFUL.

SCOTTISH VOTE BLESSING AND CURSE FOR LABOUR.

Labour’s conference in Manchester certainly didn’t feel like 1996 when the party was last preparing to take power.

Long before Ed Miliband’s blunder in “forgetting” to deliver his remarks on the economy and immigration, it was clear this gathering was not going to be the launch pad to victory. This was because the Scottish Referendum result has cast gloom not optimism across the Labour Party.

It was a victory for “no” which Labour supported but at what a price. The campaign exposed the degree to which previously loyal members in the industrial heart of Scotland (particularly Glasgow) were prepared to express their disillusionment with a party that is no longer radical enough for them. Then there were the images of Ed Miliband being jostled in a shopping mall whilst Gordon Brown showed what effective speech making was all about. Finally the referendum campaign has left Labour floundering for an answer on the English votes for English laws question.

Two last points on the Scotland vote. The high turnout wasn’t just because the question being asked was of the highest importance. Every vote mattered and was campaigned for whether it be in Kirkwall or Kilmarnock. In General Elections we have seen a growing trend for the parties to concentrate on 150 odd marginals. In the “safe” seats there is often little campaigning so it is no wonder the turnout next May could be around 65%. The other one is votes for 16/17 year olds. Ed Miliband was quite right to commit Labour to this extension of the electorate. The Scots youngsters were great. Let’s hope the other parties commit to the same proposal at a time when the issue of the prosperous old and the debt burdened young is rearing its head and needs a political voice.

LABOUR IN MANCHESTER.

So Labour delegates arrived in Manchester with a mixture of relief that Scotland was staying and concern about the trap being laid for them by the Prime Minister over English votes for English laws.

They remain ahead in the polls but can they win a majority or will they have to contemplate a deal with what’s left of the Liberal Democrats? I attended a couple of fringe meetings on that subject. There is a lot of antipathy to any deal. A Liverpool Unite delegate said the party would stop supporting Labour if such a thing happened, but there are pragmatists too.

Ed Miliband needed to make a game changing speech but failed. Both he and Ed Balls (for different reasons) are the weakness at the head of the party. However there is potential on the front bench. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham’s idea to bring social and health care together is good. A policy well explained at conference by a man who must have another run for leader. Women like Mary Creagh, Stella Creasey and Rachel Reeves are also future stars.

This was the last Labour conference in Manchester until at least 2019. My sources suggest the city has priced itself out of the party’s reach. Liverpool have stepped in to host the next two northern conferences.

Now it is on to Birmingham and the Conservatives. You can write the lines now “Ed Miliband may have forgotten the economy but we haven’t etc”. However economic optimism is likely to be overshadowed by how the Tories deal with UKIP who could be poised for by election victories not only in Clacton but Heywood and Middleton too.

IT WON’T BE LIKE WEMBLEY 1981

This isn’t a reference to the FA Cup Final replay of that year and Ricky Villa’s brilliant goal, but to a much rougher match held at Wembley four months before.

As we look forward to this weekend’s special Labour Party conference on rule changes, my mind goes back to January 1981, the last time the party reformed its leadership election structure.

After its defeat in 1979 the party had descended into civil war between left and right wing factions. The left were determined to end the exclusive right of Labour MPs to elect the leader. This was in spite of the fact that two months earlier left winger Michael Foot had been chosen as the party’s new standard bearer.

We reporters arrived at Wembley to a tension filled auditorium. The stakes had been raised dramatically higher by the threat of four senior former Labour cabinet ministers to form a new party if the exclusive right of Labour MPs to elect the leader was removed.

Undeterred the conference voted to introduce a new system whereby the unions, constituency parties and MPs would each have a third share in electing the leader.

The “Gang of Four”, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Bill Rodgers and David Owen formed the Social Democratic Party and Labour was out of office until 1997 when Tony Blair led it back to power. He reformed the famous Clause Four statement of strong socialist principles but never touched the leadership voting system.

So it was that Ed Miliband narrowly beat his brother by winning the union part of the electoral college even though most MPs and party activists voted for David Miliband.

2014: PEACE AND HARMONY.

Things couldn’t be more different this weekend as Labour is set to reform their leadership election method after 33 years. It’s come a long way since last summer when the Tories goaded Ed Miliband into proposing the change after allegations of Unite The Union shenanigans in the selection of a parliamentary candidate in Falkirk.

It looked for a while that Unite’s leader Len McCluskey would resist the reforms aimed at defusing Tory criticisms that the party was too close to the unions. But all the signs are that Saturday’s conference will rubber stamp the changes so we’d better look briefly at what they are.

The electoral college will be abolished. MPs will choose the short-list, but will then only have one vote each along with party members and affiliated supporters (see below) in choosing the next leader.

In future each trade union member will have actively to agree to a levy going to the Labour Party. Since 1946 the levy has been automatically deducted unless the member objected. Ed Miliband is taking a big financial risk with this proposal. He hopes trade unionists will take the next step by becoming affiliated supporters. He wants them to take an active interest in the party. They will get a vote in leadership elections but not in the choice of parliamentary candidates. That right will be retained by full party members.

Conservative critics do not believe their fox has been shot because the unions will retain their block vote at party conference and on the ruling National Executive Committee. This may be the price Miliband has paid for securing union agreement for the changes.

But Tories need to be careful in their criticism of who influences Labour policy. Big business continues to bankroll the Conservatives and people are still asking why plans for minimum priced alcohol and plain packaged cigarettes were withdrawn. Tory party membership is down to 100,000 partly because their activists have virtually no say in making policy.

All parties are struggling with plummeting party membership. Miliband’s attempt to get people to associate with the Labour Party if they won’t actually join might help a bit but it seems to acknowledge that he’s not inspiring people very much.

That’s partly his fault and partly the fact that there is very little to choose between the three main parties. A far cry from the Margaret Thatcher v Michael Foot General Election that followed two years after that memorable conference at Wembley.

ALL PARTY LEADERS UNEASY WITH ACTIVISTS

David Cameron has sought to reassure his party workers that he loves them really. We shall see if he has put Loongate to bed when they meet him at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester this autumn.

There is nothing new in this story of tension between the Conservative leadership and the poor bloody infantry who get them elected. A former Tory leader, Arthur Balfour, remarked a hundred years ago that he would rather take advice from his valet than the Conservative Party conference.

But this tension between party leaderships and grass root activists is not confined to the Tories.

Before Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson spoilt it all, the Labour Party conference used to be the occasion for a really interesting debate between pragmatic leaders who had one eye on the voters, and left wing activists who wanted the revolution tomorrow. That tension is still there but it is masked by party managers who want Labour to fight from the centre ground.

The result is that the Labour Party conference has become schizophrenic. On the debating floor, a series of anodyne debates are staged whilst on the fringes a really dynamic conversation is taking place. The public aren’t fooled and many party members leave mainstream politics in despair.

It is also true of the Liberal Democrats, and their predecessor party the Liberals. In the sixties and seventies there was tremendous tension between the then leader Jeremy Thorpe and the Young Liberals led by Peter Hain (now an ex Labour Minister). That tension resurfaced when the Lib Dems and the Social Democrats merged, bringing into the Alliance people like David Owen who believed in Britain’s nuclear deterrent.

An old friend of mine, Viv Bingham, who sadly died last year, lead a strong campaign for unilateralism.

He was at one time President of the Party, but always had an uneasy relationship with leaders like David Steel. Viv represented a distinctive trend of northern Liberalism committed to the cooperative movement, public service and opposition to nuclear weapons. It is interesting that the Southport MP John Pugh is calling this weekend on his party to recognise the different northern priorities as the Lib Dems prepare for the General Election campaign.

What Tory activists, left wing Labour supporters and radical Liberal Democrats are all battling against is the mentality of the London elite. Politicians in power get sucked into the world of civil servants who know little of life beyond the M25. Then they are surrounded by special advisers who have little sympathy with the fact that the ministers only got their because of the hard work of activists who believe in distinctive Tory, Socialist or Liberal principals.

Of course some of the ideas of grass roots activists are idealistic, too expensive or would turn off the voters. However the disconnect in the three main parties between the leadership and the grass roots, partly explains the rise of UKIP.

In my opinion many of them are swivel-eyed loons, but there is no gap between them and their leader Nigel Farage.