One of the worst aspects of the appalling mess that the Labour party has descended into is that hundreds of local councillors lost their seats. Labour does not run a single county council in the country. Millions of residents who depend on well run Labour councillors and hard working local councillors to represent them have been badly let down.
Not withstanding the huge difficulties caused by the expenses scandal and the recession, Labour councillors went into the campaign under the leadership of Gordon Brown, a Labour party leader that they never had an opportunity to elect. The message to those councillors seeking re-election in 2010 – there are major local elections next year, including all London boroughs – is that we must unite under the leadership of Gordon Brown, who has just presided over the party’s worst election results since 1918.
The Labour party must never again choose a leader by coronation rather than election. When Tony Blair stood down as Labour leader in 2007, it did not seem to cross the minds of the supporters of Gordon Brown, potential leadership candidates and the PLP as a whole that councillors and party members should be given a say in who their next leader would be. Or if it did, they obviously didn’t think it was that important.
If Gordon Brown had been elected by the Labour movement, he would have had to set out his vision for the country and persuade councillors, trade unionists and party activists, as well as MPs, MEPs and Peers that he was the best person to lead the Labour party. When times are tough, we could all have rallied round Gordon Brown, knowing that we had chosen him to the lead the party.
The rules for electing the leader and deputy leader of the Labour party must be changed to give councillors a greater role. It is odd that councillors receive ballot papers as party members, as trade unionists and as members of Socialist Societies such as the Fabians and the Christian Socialist Movement, but not as councillors. There can be no justification for giving unelected Peers a greater say in the election of our party leader than elected councillors.
The electoral college should be reformed to have a section for councillors, and candidates would be required to be nominated by specific number of councillors and council leaders. Councillors can be more dispassionate in their choices as unlike MPs, they are not dependent upon the patronage of the party leader for advancement in government or the PLP.
Such a change in the rules for electing the Labour party’s leader and deputy leader would give councillors a greater role in the Labour party, and would require senior MPs to engage more effectively with the party’s representatives in local government. The party would be more democratic and inclusive if the leader of Manchester City Council and members of his Labour Group could nominate candidates for leader and deputy leader, in the same way that Manchester’s four MPs can currently do so.