The new parliamentary term has started as it means to go on; the fallout from the expenses issue looks set to cloud the political landscape for many of the months that take us to the election. Labour – at all levels inside and outside of Westminster – needs to lead on parliamentary reform. Morally, because that is right, and politically because HM Opposition won’t. There is an opportunity too though, through our fresh faces, to tie this in with much-needed party reform.
It is clear already that many existing MPs will no longer be in Westminster after the next election. The new parliament will offer a clean slate for Labour with its new intake of MPs. Labour candidates who are standing to be elected into the next parliament are facing a choice: act now to seize the nettle of political and constitutional reform to tackle the effects of the expenses crisis. Or act later, potentially much later and too late for much of the electorate. It is a time for reform and a time for big ideas.
If you look at YouGov’s post-conference season polling, Brown comfortably leads Cameron on the quality ‘good in a crisis’ but trails badly on ‘in touch with the concerns of ordinary people’. The reemergence, after a summer hiatus, of the expenses issue, gives the PM an opportunity to consolidate the former whilst addressing the latter. One way to do this is to lead his future parliamentarians into battle.
Labour PPCs must facilitate a conversation with voters, activists and volunteers now around the big issues facing our democracy and our political class. If a ‘new politics’ is going to emerge then Labour has to be at the front, pushing radical ideas and creating a new narrative of change that mobilises support and appeals to a broad coalition of people – swapping cynicism for reasoned idealism. It goes without saying that Labour needs to go to where the people are. And so if people aren’t interested in, or are cynical about, policy, then let’s talk to them about expenses and political reform. A positive approach will bring them back round to policy discussions soon enough.
We must recognise that the general public really can contribute on this issue. This is where the big ideas will come from. By talking to communities not at them, opening up our policy discussion to include community groups, and showing their commitment to real reform, the next generation of Labour MPs can use the coming months to engage proactively with their future constituents and take Labour’s message out to anyone and everyone.
Candidates and volunteers must talk to real people in a very public fashion. Mini-conventions in our communities can be led by Labour PPCs or council candidates. Then Brown, or Harman, or others can trumpet some of the better ideas that come up, making it clear that with our party people can contribute and make a difference.
Using the principal behind free votes in parliament, on the issue of parliamentary/constitutional reform, Labour could open up its policy-making process to the whole country, not just party members. There’s not a vote on ‘passing’ this policy as such, but there is a method of collating the different voices and ideas – be it a wiki statement of principles, through meetings, or online submissions of reform ideas.
It’s a route to tackling disengagement in party politics; addressing parliamentary reform whilst developing new ways of working as a party.
On Next Left last weekend, Sunder Katwala argues that Labour’s priority in policy-making and the manifesto should be content and not process. We disagree. We believe the content can gain traction, even at this stage, by coming from an interesting process. LabourSpace is part of the mechanism but it has never quite taken off. Yet it needs to. Getting new faces, our PPCs, out around the country is one way of doing this.
A commitment from Labour in its manifesto to bring about radical constitutional reform and to deliver on the overwhelming desire of voters to see change in the way our political system works would give our PPCs new confidence and opportunities to reach out in a way that their Conservative opponents will not. If we can strengthen the way our party works at the same time we’ll all be better off for it.
The electorate are willing this – which is why Labour can win.
This week is the Young Fabians PPC Week. This will see the launch of a collection of essays and a series of guest contributions to the YF blog. A YF event on Thursday evening sees a panel of PPCs discuss ‘Why Labour can win – and why the country needs a centre-left government’. For details on the event, and to download the publication, please visit www.youngfabians.org.uk.
If Brown trails badly on ‘in touch with the concerns of ordinary people’ it may have a lot to do with his Scottishness.
Although the Tories are yet to convince the public, they are not seen as anti-English, which is what a lot of people in England think of the current Government.
The shopping list of promises that were unveiled at the Labour conference mainly applied to England (personal care for elderly, free hospital parking, cancer pledge, etc.). It just looks to England like a Scottish prime minister ‘giving’ us stuff that his constituents already take for granted, but usually the offer is a lesser one as with personal care in England only being available to suffers of alzheimer’s and dementia.
It’s debatable whether the better social policies enjoyed by Scotland are a result of a more progressive administration or because they get far more money per head from the Barnett Formula, but most people in England now think that they’re paying for Gordon Brown’s constituents better social provision.
The relentless ‘Britishness’ brainwashing is having no effect and seems reactionary and politically motivated. Why don’t Labour start a ‘Governance of England’ initiative and set about promoting an inclusive and plural English national identity and a new politics for England? That they don’t just marks them out as anti-English to most people.