The first thing for Labour Party members in the New Year

The first phase of the Labour Party’s Democracy Review is very much upon us. The deadline for submissions on the organisational aspects of Young Labour, BAME Labour and Women’s Conference is 12 January 2018. The questions which are specifically asked in the first phase are

How should Young Labour be organised nationally, regionally and locally?

How should Black, Asian and Ethnic Minority members and organisations be represented in the Party?

What role should Women's Conference have?

Ann Black’s report from the NEC Committee meetings of 31 October assured us that “there is no pre-set agenda and no documents which pre-empt the conclusions, and deadlines are fluid, with further thoughts accepted after the stated dates.” That’s just as well, as Labour Party bodies have had precious little time to consider these questions.

It may well be that it will take more than the length of time from Conference 2017 to Conference 2018 to formulate and implement proposals to democratise our Party. Indeed there is no compelling reason why Party democracy ought not to be under continual review and reconsideration.

That said, we need to do our best to engage with the timetable which has been set for this review if we are to maximise the democratic influence of ordinary Party members. Clearly these first questions are of particular interest to young members, Black, Asian and ethnic minority members and women members.

However, all members should be engaged in the struggles against the oppressions experienced by these groups of members and ought therefore also to be engaged in the discussion which the Party is seeking to have about how these groups of Labour Party members should organise themselves within our Party.

Indeed, since the reason why groups of members experiencing oppression need to organise themselves is because of that oppression and the need to fight it (rather than simply in order to express diverse identities), the question of how to organise is as much about the end of resisting oppression as about the means of (what we in UNISON refer to as) self-organisation.

Since each form of oppression has its particular characteristics, so the answers to the questions which arise from the struggle against each oppression may be as different as may the questions themselves. For example, whereas there are few who deny the legitimacy of a youth organisation, we would be foolish to believe that everyone (even every Labour Party member) understands the daily reality of racism in today’s Britain, and hence the need for self-organisation of the members who are on the receiving end of that racism.

Our fight for democracy within the Labour Party is not separate from our struggle to transform society. 

A message for UNISON members at Christmas

Although I have stood down in the past year from all my elected positions within my trade union, UNISON, of which I am now simply a member like any other, I have not lost my interest in what UNISON, its activists and officials, are doing. Indeed, at Christmas, I am very keen to know if my income could be increased (!)

As I am no longer a Branch Secretary, and no longer an NEC member, I no longer have to maintain a pretence that UNISON has strength, that it can defend the living standards of its members when it plainly cannot.

(Though looking back at this blog you would have had to be particularly dense to think that I was maintaining such a pretence up to now).

Whilst inflation is at 3% the local government employers (negotiating the pay of the largest group of UNISON members) have offered 2%. One can understand the factors constraining their ability to offer more without thinking it reasonable that we local government workers should face a further reduction in our standard of living.

UNISON must reject this offer – and must organise to resist through strike action. However, the Union is greatly weakened in this vital struggle by the misleadership from which it has suffered in the recent past.

Six years ago, the leadership of UNISON played a key role in the capitulation by the public service trade unions to the pension reform plans of the Coalition Government. These plans could have been defeated, even by the weakened trade union movement of 2011/12 – they were not because our leaders chose not to take that path. (UNISON’s leadership played a central role but the leadership of the GMB and UNITE were equally implicated). The union leaderships led our members into the biggest strike since 1926 and then marched back down the hill with nothing to show for the action that hadn’t been offered earlier – this capitulation was central to the survival of the Coalition Government.

Two years ago, that same leadership circled their moth-eaten wagons to defend the misbehaviour which was proven to have happened in the ramshackle campaign to secure the precarious re-election of the lame-duck General Secretary. The Assistant Certification Officer has put in the public domain the fact that your blogger was threatened with legal action as part of that sorry episode (and I repeat and reiterate my apology to Dave Prentis and that he was not personally culpable for misconduct in the election) – the only reason there has not been a more serious reckoning within the Union is because of an ill-advised appeal. (Not of course the only such ill-judged appeal). This is the last term of office of UNISON’s current General Secretary and the machine that secured his election previously is now leaderless and broken.

The worst enemies of our trade union movement would not describe us as a meritocracy – and they would not be wrong in that. Our trade unions desperately need better leadership, because the quality of our leadership is generally (in the largest trade unions) very poor.

The democracy of our movement offers us the opportunity to improve the quality of that leadership by replacing it. UNISON’s rank and file activists need finally to unite behind a single challenger if our members are ever to get the leadership they deserve.

I am part of a generation of activists who failed to achieve that unity and our only contribution to the future can be to acknowledge that we were all wrong in failing to achieve that unity – and that someone else could now be right. The only people who are more wrong are those who have continued to support the failing leadership in spite of their inability to defend our members’ interests. 

This Christmas is a good time to fight racism

As regular readers of this blog might expect, I got into something of a row in a pub in the run up to Christmas about whether or not black workers experience systematic racial disadvantage in the workplace. I know what I know from the evidence of my own eyes and my own intelligence over the past thirty years of working life, but I thought it worth setting out the evidence here.

in the last 3 months of 2016, the average hourly pay for White employees was £13.75, while the average hourly pay for employees from other ethnic groups was £13.18 (so on average white employees are earning 4.3% more than non-white employees). This single figure doesn’t quite capture the stark inequality in workplaces with significant black workforces where the senior management are overwhelmingly white, but it speaks to racial inequality in the world of work. 11% of white employees are in managerial positions (of any seniority) compared to 5% of black employees.

Access to the world of work itself is also subject to racial inequality however. White people are considerably more likely to be in paid employment since in 2016, the economic inactivity rate – the number of people who are economically inactive as a percentage of the total working age population – was 21% for White British people and 30% for people from all Other ethnic groups, a difference of nine percentage points.

Racial inequality in employment is a manifestation of the racism embedded structurally and institutionally within British (and Western) capitalism, and is therefore reflected also in the world outside work – for example in the criminal justice system.

Although in 2015/16, a higher proportion of the Mixed, Asian and Black adult populations were victims of crime than the White adult population, it was Black people who were over 3 times more likely to be arrested than White people  and ethnic minority groups in general who were over one and a half times more likely to be arrested than White people. (Perhaps because people from an ethnic minority background are 3 times more likely to be stopped and searched by the Police than White people and Black people are over 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched than White people).

The state disproportionately polices the Black population, even though that population is disproportionately in need of protection.

All these statistics are drawn from official sources and published by the Government. They are hardly likely to exaggerate this stain upon our society – and yet many people (including workers who work in organisations where this evidence is manifest around them) are capable of denying them.

Racism is resurgent. The Presidency of the United States is in the hands of reaction, a far-right Party is in Government in Austria and this country is careering wildly on a path set by a referendum result dictated by anti-immigrant prejudice (never forget that a Labour MP was murdered by a racist during the referendum campaign and that the result was that sought by the assailant and not the victim).

The obvious failure of the contemporary capitalist system to offer decent lives to the majority of the population does offer hope that a socialist leadership of the Labour Party could give us a socialist Government – but the lessons of the 1930s surely teach us that times such as these also offer the possibility of far worse outcomes.

Socialists here and now need to be the most determined anti-racists – and we need to assert the truth of the fact of institutional racism in the face of the denial of our fellow citizens and fellow workers.

For long years I fought this fight as a union activist  - now, as a Labour Party representative I know how important it is that we ensure that we select black and ethnic minority candidates for public office – and that every candidate we select is committed to the fight against racism. 

Farewell John and Carl

As the year in which I ceased to be a full-time local trade union representative after quarter of a century draws to a close, I am sorry to hear of the passing of two other former UNISON Branch Secretaries in London local government.

John Mulrenan, from the neighbouring borough of Southwark, served our movement not only as a Branch Secretary (more than once), but subsequently as a union trainer (in which capacity he was greatly appreciated in Lambeth).

John was a diamond, a socialist rank and file activist who neither gave up nor fell victim to either sectarianism or careerism. He was generous with his experience and therefore leaves a legacy in the activism of many people whose lives he touched.

Carl Millin, retired Branch Secretary from Bexley, was not perhaps in the same political space as John (or your blogger). He was though a long serving trade unionist committed to a union run by elected, rather than paid, officials. His wry comments as an observer of our Conferences were welcome and appreciated.

In John and Carl our movement has lost two stalwarts from among the ranks of those who are the lifeblood of trade unionism.

A life of service to the movement which can liberate humanity is a life well lived.

Who should elect the Leader of the Labour Group?

Comrade Lloyd Russell-Moyle, the recently elected MP for Brighton Kemptown, has written an interesting article proposing that Labour Group Leaders should be elected by the Party membership, rather than simply by Labour Group Members.

Lloyd argues persuasively that this would be consistent with the approach to electing the Party Leader, a decision which was wrested from sole control of the Parliamentary Labour Party in the 1980s and has never been taken back.

This is also, of course, the approach we take to choosing candidates for directly elected Mayors – and it is that comparison which gives me pause for thought. Lloyd sees the positives asking readers to “imagine the genuine local engagement and policy development that would be gained from leadership contests between those vying to lead our cities and counties. Leaders who would go on to foster the values of their membership while governing creating a ‘mass movement to transform society’”.

This process, Lloyd argues “has delivered successful mayors and national leaders and it would do the same for council group leaders.” I think this needs a little more thought however. At the moment Labour Group Leaders (even when they are Council Leaders) have the authority given them by their fellow Councillors (and only that). They do not have, and cannot (or ought not to) claim authority in relation to the wider Party (which elects its own officers) nor can they claim a mandate – within the Party – which competes with that of the Party Leader.

The remnants of the careerist clique whose hold over the Party was shaken in 2015 particularly like to focus on the mandate of any elected “leader” who may advocate more “moderate” and “responsible” policies than the Party Leader. That is not – of itself – an argument against direct election by Party members of Group Leaders, but it does highlight one of the potential consequences of what would be a deliberate fracturing and further federalising of power and authority within the Party.

From a parochial point of view I can see both the benefits and risks of our membership electing a local Labour Group Leader. Certainly this could mean that such a Leader would have the support and direction of the Party’s mass membership, giving them both courage and confidence to act in accordance with the radical policies of the Party.

However, we might thereby concentrate power and authority in the hands of an individual (having also created yet another role to which the ambitious might aspire) – and that might not be the way to devolve and decentralise power (nor, which is always most important, to hold power to account).

We certainly need checks and balances to restrain and control all those to whom we give power, whether in the Party or through elected office. Direct election (and – to be controversial – mandatory reselection) are both worthwhile examples of such checks and balances – and the current system of Labour Council Leaders dominating self-referential (and frequently self-obsessed) and isolated Labour Groups is not a working system in many cases.

Lloyd’s proposals demonstrate thought and imagination about our future and are worthy of consideration, although it is perfectly acceptable to remain (like your blogger) unconvinced and therefore undecided.

Certainly, Lloyd’s ideas would require amendment to the Rules of our Party if they were to be given mandatory effect – and therefore there needs to be a debate in the Party about whether or not to propose such amendments. However, we could discuss locally whether or not to experiment with Lloyd’s preferred approach.

Clause Nine of Chapter 13 of the Rule Book provides that “the selection of nominations for civic offices, council leadership, chair and vice-chair of any committees and allocation of members to committees shall be made in accordance with the group standing orders, and in a manner that ensures equality of opportunity and encourages underrepresented groups to come forward. The Party expects Labour cabinets to reflect the diversity of the area represented by the local authority as far as possible, and to discuss any failure to do so with the RD(GS). Where a vote for a nomination is necessary it shall be by secret ballot. The appropriate Local Campaign Forum of the Party shall have the right and opportunity to submit names for consideration, but formal nomination and selection shall be as specified in the group standing orders.” (I have added relevant emphasis).

So, under our current rules, it is quite open to the Local Campaign Forum (perhaps following a process of democratic consultation with members like, for example, a ballot) to submit a name to the Labour Group with a recommendation that they should be the Leader of the Council (albeit the Group should then have a secret ballot in accordance with their own standing orders).

We could use such a democratic process to – in effect – pilot Lloyd’s idea following any election which leads to a Labour Leader of a local authority within our current Rules, whilst we consider whether or not to amend them.

This is a discussion which, having been started, should now be taken forward.

Perils of the Rule Book...

As regular readers of this blog (Sid and Doris Retired) will be aware, your humble blogger spent many years as a troublemaker in the ranks of UNISON, during which time (according to no less an authority than the Assistant Certification Officer) I acquired the nickname “Rule Book Rogers”.

This was (depending on your point of view) either because I was a vigilant defender of lay control and democracy or because I was an incorrigible troublemaker (or possibly both). Rule Books are incredibly important documents for those who believe in democracy because they tell us how we should try to assert the powers which we are given formally but which are so often substantively denied us.

Now that I have left the field clear in UNISON for new leadership I am spending more time with the Rule Book of the Party of which I have been a member since I was a teenager. This turns out to be something of an adventure, since the Labour Party Rule Book is not  so beholden to notions of internal consistency which so often entitled the Standing Orders Committee (SOC) for UNISON National Delegate Conference (NDC) to rule out of order proposed amendments.

Chapter 5 of the Rule Book, at Clause Three Part One provides that The NEC, Scottish Executive Committee and Welsh Executive Committee shall issue procedural rules and guidelines for the selection of local government candidates. Local Campaign Forums, established in accordance with Chapter 12 of these rules, shall be responsible for implementing these guidelines.

Chapter 12 of the Rule Book sets out the Rules for Local Campaign Forums (of one of which I am now a Chair) and, at Clause Nine, Part Three, deals with the circumstances of  a local government by-election as follows; “in the event of a by-election arising the Executive Committee shall consult with the executive committees of the CLP and branches concerned to ensure that a candidate is selected as far as possible following the procedure referred to above.”  

So that is very clear. The Executive Committee of the Local Campaign Forum (LCF) takes responsibility for the selection of a by-election candidate and consults with the Executive of the Constituency Labour Party (CLP).

Except that (as we have seen) Chapter 5 empowers the NEC to draw up procedural rules and guidelines governing the selection of local government candidates, and these are set out in Appendix Four of the Rule Book. Section I of that Appendix deals with shortlisting and selection and paragraph (v)(a) of that section provides that; “in the event of a local government by-election occurring within a constituency, the Executive Committee of the CLP concerned shall consult with the executive of the appropriate LCF and the officers of any branches concerned to ensure that the vacancy is contested by the Party.”

So that is very clear. The Executive Committee of the CLP takes responsibility for the selection of a by-election candidate and consults with the Executive of the LCF.

What could possibly go wrong? 

Savaged by an anonymous (dead) sheep?

I was going to blog thanks to those members of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party (CLP) who attended last night’s Annual General Meeting (at which I was re-elected as Chair) for the comradely conduct of the meeting – but my attention has been taken by the report in the Argus of last week’s inaugural meeting of our Local Campaign Forum (LCF).

This is an odd story (as one online commentator on the Argus site has pointed out) since it mixes sensible factual reporting of the functions of the LCF, and the (surely inoffensive) aspirations of the officers of that body, with a concocted story of controversy based entirely on the reported comments of a single anonymous individual (though seasoned liberally with extracts from an earlier post here).

So, on the one hand the Argus explains that “the LCF runs the process to select potential council candidates. Anyone who wishes to be selected as the Labour candidate in any of the city wards must first put their name forward to the LCF” (which is true) and reports that “no qualified candidates will be refused a place on the panel, but that efforts will be made to encourage as many candidates as possible to stand, including more LGBT and ethnic minority candidates than have stood in recent years” (which is certainly what the officers of the LCF want to see).

On the other hand, the headline describes the election unopposed at an inaugural meeting of people who (in common with the majority of local Party members) support the politics of the Party’s national leadership as a “take-over” and quotes an anonymous source characterising this as a “grab for power” by a “Stalinist group”. Our anonymous friend either has a very lively imagination or was the wrong side of one too many drinks when they gave their views to the local paper.

Whilst I am always in favour of newspaper reports which quote from this little blog, the truth about the LCF (of which I was honoured to be elected Chair without opposition) is both more boring and more exciting than the Argus – and its secret interlocutor – would have you believe.

It is more boring because it will not be the site of internal strife within our Party, but a vehicle for encouraging the participation of Party members, as candidates and in selection processes, as well as for encouraging the campaigning which we will need to get to a socialist Council in our City.

And it is more exciting because we are going to build a large and diverse pool of potential candidates from whom we will be selecting representatives who will be part of the continuing transformation of our Party and our society. 

Which way for Labour Party democracy and effectiveness?

It has been good to hear of the victories of left-wing candidates supportive of the direction of the national Labour Party under its current leadership at the recent Annual General Meetings of Hove and Kemptown Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs). We shall see if Brighton Pavilion CLP also continues to be left-led later this week.

(It’s not modesty that prevents me mentioning the victory of the left at Brighton and Hove’s Local Campaign Forum last weekend, at which I was elected Chair – rather, much as I want to comment on the future of our campaigning across Brighton and Hove, I have something different to say just now).

There is a debate within today’s Labour Party about the two choices for organising at a local level which are permitted by our Rule Book. The first is the “traditional” model of branches electing delegates (along with delegates from affiliated organisations) to a General Committee (GC) (which is itself managed by an elected Executive).

The second model is the model of “all member meetings” (as applied by supporters of Militant in 1980s Merseyside and in the short-lived an ill-starred “City Party” in Brighton and Hove) which annually elects an Executive. Advocates of this latter approach genuinely believe that it is “more democratic”.

I think they are wrong for a number of reasons.

First, “all member meetings” do not of themselves increase participation by members in decision-making. If anything, they tend to do the reverse. Take a CLP with 3,000 members in six branches as a hypothetical example.

A monthly “all member” meeting would do well to attract 300 members to a monthly meeting lasting three hours (allowing the opportunity for a maximum of 60 members to make a three-minute contribution to discussion if there were no other business and no one spoke more than once).

Were those same 300 active and engaged members to attend six branch meetings to engage in similar discussion then (based on the same assumptions) it would be possible for every single member to have their say. This is because there would be (in aggregate) six times as long for debate in six separate meetings as in a single meeting).

Secondly, smaller branch meetings provide a safer and more conducive environment for contributions from members who may lack the confidence to speak in front of a very large audience. This multiplies the benefit of a branch structure for member participation in meetings (and whilst splitting an “all member” meeting up into groups could replicate this possibility to increase contribution such groups could not be decision making units of our Party as branches are).

Thirdly, a non-negligible point is that “all member” meetings exclude representation of Party affiliates from discussion (whereas affiliates, of which the trade unions are far and away the most important, can have a voice at a GC alongside branch delegates). This is not just a point about respecting Party tradition – the relationship between the political wing of the workers’ movement (the Labour Party) and our industrial wing (the trade unions) is central to the Party’s reason for existence. For all the imperfections of the often undemocratic relationship between the Party and the unions, this relationship is what distinguishes our Party from other Parties which merely seek to govern an unjust society (rather than mobilise those in whose interests it may be transformed).

Finally, and most importantly, a branch structure, in which branches are not simply “top down” channels of communication but are the basic unity of Party democracy, holding to account their GC delegates on a monthly basis, is the model which can entrench democracy not only within our Party, but also – through our Party – our wider society.

What we need from our mass membership Labour Party is a social force capable of defending our Government, when it is elected and faces sabotage from the forces of reaction (whether by a “run on the pound”, pressure from “international allies”, mobilisation on the streets by the far right, attacks in the media or a conspiracy within the “deep state”). To build this we need roots deep in each community, in every street and neighbourhood.

Building up our branches is the most important thing which we can do. More important than any election or any selection of any candidate (whether for local or Parliamentary elections). If we can succeed in building a mass democratic Labour Party then that Party will suffice to hold to account our representatives. If we cannot build such a Party then the project of our future Government cannot succeed.

A branch based delegate structure, in which vibrant branches hold delegates to account and assert the authority of the rank and file membership over the structures of the Party, is the best guarantor of Party democracy (and therefore of the effectiveness of the Party as a vehicle for the transformation of society). “All member” structures cannot possibly replicate these benefits – but provide the illusion of mass membership influence over a local leadership which (as we saw in Brighton and Hove) is able to distance itself from meaningful accountability if it will.

An “all member” structure may be an acceptable substitute for effective local organisation in areas where the local Labour Party is not (yet) a mass membership organisation – but it is very much second-best to an effective branch structure.