If the most significant organisational change in the Labour party in the past decade and a half is the creation of the National Policy Forum and Partnership in Power, the Warwick agreement was the defining moment for the constituencies, the unions and the Labour party in government. This year’s party conference was disappointing because of the actions of some unions that undermined the Warwick agreement. It also brought home the contrast between the inclusive, engaging policy-making process of Partnership in Power, and the macho, ‘resolutionary’ politics which has too often characterised conference
in the past.
In his opening speech to conference this year, Ian McCartney argued that our structures and policy-making processes are not incidental to our mission, they are part of the vehicle for achieving change. Yet at conference, resolutions supporting secondary picketing and halting NHS reform were passed by the unions voting as a block, against the Warwick agreement, despite the majority of delegates opposing them. It was head-to-head yah-boo politics. There was no role for the diverse elements of the Labour movement, the socialist societies, MPs or councillors, as there is in Partnership in Power.
In the approaching age of the super-union, it is time for an honest debate about how we balance conference. How sustainable is it for one or two stakeholders to have an effective veto over its decision-making processes? And how damaging is it
to the Labour movement for one of
its founding members, the unions, to be pigeonholed as Neanderthal and backward-looking? As a strong supporter of the unions, and past member of my union’s regional and national political committees, it grieves me that we are squandering
the advances of Warwick.
The experience of this year’s conference leads me to believe that we need to work harder on greater engagement of all party members. For instance, being a newly elected MP at conference this year gave me less of a role than when I was a steward. I was just a bystander at the major events taking place. It was a great contrast to the Partnership in Power process, in which all sections
of the party are represented and equally involved. No wonder so few MPs turn up for conference or stay longer than a couple of days. And yet it should be the vehicle that brings all parts of our movement together.
Since being in government, the Labour party has listened to its members and adapted its policy-developing structures accordingly. There is the success of Partnership
in Power, with 4,000 submissions from local parties and affiliated organisations in the last round. There are the 50,000 people who
took part in the Big Conversation. There are also the further reforms to the Partnership in Power process the party made this year, which give a greater say to local Labour parties. Furthermore, organisations such as Progress and the Fabians have an important role to play in the process of renewing the party, as have the Co-op party and other socialist societies.
It is only through this quality of participation that we have been able to create such a radical, yet widely popular, manifesto. Now it is time for a review of the conference structure,
so that members have a stronger voice in the preparation of new policy and in holding Labour ministers and MPs
to account for delivering the manifesto. Then we can get closer to Attlee’s conception of conference as the ‘parliament of the movement’.
The task now, for all of us who care about every member’s involvement, is to build on the changes already made with the knowledge gained through the NPF and the Big Conversation.
This year’s conference showed us that Labour’s renewal in power must start with the renewal of conference.