So apparently you can now join the Tories for a quid. Cue lots of
jokes about cheap and tacky pound shops, and a few raised eyebrows at a
bunch of old Etonians trying to bring politics to the many. It does
provoke a few interesting questions, however. How much should joining a
political party cost? What should you get in return? And, even more
significantly, what’s the point of party membership anyway in the
internet age?
For the Tories it’s clearly an attempt to give a
shot of adrenaline to the old blue-rinse brigade. In the Tory
heartlands they seem to tolerate the socially liberal Cameron as a sort
of necessary evil to get back into power, and in the rest of the
country such is the cultural enmity to the Tories that saying you are a
Conservative party member is akin to outing yourself as some sort of
deviant. It’s all very different to the days when they had over two
million members and could legitimately point to elected representatives
in all parts of England, and in fact in Scotland and Wales too.
It’s
a pillar of political theory that right-wing parties have looser, less
defined memberships because they emerged in the twentieth century as
mechanisms to support a politics that was already in power but faced
the challenge of mass democracy, as opposed to left-wing parties which
were formed to represent forces locked out of the political system. The
Conservatives and Labour are exemplars of this model; the Tories being
able to trace a lineage in Parliament lasting centuries, and Labour
still has a federal organisation with inbuilt trade union and socialist
society voting rights.
The historical influence of membership
on the Labour party still weighs heavily on our culture. Put simply, we
like people to do their ‘time’ as members, building up what people have
described as your ‘Labour pedigree’. Anyone expecting to just turn up
and stand for office on a Labour ticket will be fiercely resisted, and
anyone who mistakenly joined another party first – especially the
Liberals – will simply never be one of us.
It’s like we operate a
version of the Tesco ClubCard scheme but for socialists: were you a
member in the 1980s? 50 points. Been a trade union branch official? 100
points. Delivered a bag full of leaflets in the freezing rain on a
regular basis? 500 points. Wider experience of centre-left causes
brings big bonus points too. Many was the time as a student activist I
could win an argument simply by pointing out that I joined the party
when I was 17, grew up in the North-East and had attended my local
comprehensive. Oh, and my granddad was a miner. Beat that.
It’s
as if, even in an age of record low levels of membership, we think
there’s a load of people just waiting to hijack the cause if we drop
our guard. Similarly, any dilution of the ancient status of the member
– and the corresponding hierarchy of meetings being a member entitles
you to attend – must be some sort of evil Head Office plot to
marginalise the activist base and turn us into the Democrats.
To
me the future of party organisation lies somewhere between this and
what the Tories are now proposing for themselves. I want a party
controlled by ordinary people, not MPs or full-time officials, and I
want local accountability for our elected representatives. Equally, I
deplore the approach of the Lib Dems, standing anyone on their ticket
regardless of their values or commitment to their cause.
However,
I’m far from terrified of letting people who we know vote for us and
share our aims, but who don’t want to pay £36 a year, contribute and
participate to what we do. Similarly, I understand that some people
would prefer to support us without giving up their Friday night to
attend their local GC, and I’m pretty comfortable with this too. Even
more radically, if I can see someone who clearly shares my ideals and I
think they could do a good job, I’d be happy to see them stand for us
even if they haven’t yet chalked up a full decade of party membership.
Whether
the ‘everything’s a pound’ approach will work for the Tories remains to
be seen, but opening up our party structures and increasing our
supporter base is something Labour just can’t afford to ignore.
Jonny Reynolds is a Labour councillor in Tameside