Labour conference: right only with the party?

Posted on Thursday 20 September, 2007
Filed Under New Labour

 

‘I know that one must not be right against the party. One can be right only with the party, and through the party, for history has no other road for being in the right.’ – Trotsky at the thirteenth congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 1924

Back in the early 1990s, the political conference season often used to see me embark on a four-week tour of British seaside resorts. TUC, Lib Dems, Labour, Tories. In some years I went to the lot.

What’s more, I actually enjoyed it. Genuine political debates took place. And in those less security conscious times, it was pretty easy to gatecrash some top notch evening bashes. I even managed to blag my way into a do that enabled me to meet most of the Major cabinet.

That included Michael Heseltine. A few months previously I had written something pretty insulting about him in Tribune. He clocked my badge and said to me: ‘Dave Osler of Tribune? I considered suing you. But I guessed you didn’t have any money anyway.’ Correct, sir.

These days I wouldn’t bother attending even if it was still vaguely relevant to the day job. I’ll be spending next week in Paris. This wasn’t a conscious to get out of the country so as to escape all media coverage the Labour conference. It’s just that the consideration of a clash didn’t even enter my mind when I was sorting out my holiday dates.

I doubt I will be missing much. The gathering has long been a dull stage-managed affair. On the rare occasions the line from the top is not endorsed, the leadership instantly announces that it has no intention of carrying out what is still technically party policy.

What’s more, with the latest set of changes put forward by Gordon Brown in the name of extending party democracy, the exercise is just about to become even more pointless. Tony Benn explains what is happening, and provides a bit of backstory, in the Guardian today:

This process began in the 90s, when New Labour came to power and most proposals were referred to the national policy forum in which the government had a permanent majority.

But it was agreed that eight resolutions could be put to the conference every year – four from constituency parties and four from the unions. The conference was able, for instance, to vote for a restoration of the link between pensions and earnings. The government did, however, succeed in preventing discussion on other sensitive issues like Iraq and its decision to go ahead with Trident.

If the new proposals – now endorsed by the NEC and apparently some major trade unions – are accepted, delegates will only be allowed to identify issues they want looked at by the policy forums, and the manifesto that emerges will be put to a referendum of party members to accept or reject in full, with no possibility of amendment.

This would complete the New Labour project under which the conference becomes a platform for ministers and a few handpicked delegates – and, of course, a big trade fair. There would be no point in joining the party locally or affiliating as a union in the hope of discussing policy.

In short, party members will only have one campaigning function – to get councillors and a government elected with policies which they have played no part whatsoever in formulating. If this divorce happens, policy campaigning will revert to those outside the party and parliament.

The unions have secured agreement that the new arrangements will be reviewed in 2008, something they are trumpeting as a major concession. Sorry, guys. Don’t hold your breath.

And it’s not that either the Conservative or Liberal Democrat conferences are significantly more open-minded, either. In the end, democracy is the loser.

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