Conference came and went, bringing with it a bonanza of policies and two die-hard protestations of loyalty to the prime minister from Peter Mandelson and David Miliband, unusual for being more emphatic than necessary. Ministers were sent back to parliament clear where their loyalties lay. Rebels were sent back to parliament dispirited. Conference was always going to be a jamboree of adherence to the master, but some felt this stretched too far.
But in the windowless corridors of the low-ceilinged halls outside Labour’s conference hall, whether or not cabinet ministers were patching things up with Gordon Brown, each other or the media; or backbenchers were licking their wounded aspirations, a grassroots revolution was being hatched.
Sick of no longer holding votes on the conference floor, a group of delegates proposed to conference that members of the policy-making body be elected by grassroots members. The issue got legs, and was selected as a motion. There were other similar ideas doing the rounds and all went up for debate. Cath Speight, on the conference stage, beseeched delegates proposing such changes to wait until after the next election when a package of such measures would be considered – many, with lesser ideas, obliged but not this lot: the delegates proposing it were bullish and wanted their small victory for democracy this side of an election. Eventually it went through and a big cheer went up. For most, this was the biggest advance at conference in half a decade. Delegates had landed a blow.
Number 10 were furious – strutting around Brighton’s exhibition centre enraged that a piffling little piece of process was suddenly out of their ability to influence and avert. Normally they had controlled the process when elections to the national policy forum had come up, it was usually at conference and it was usually a pretty easy process to massage meaning you knew exactly who was on your so-called independent policy-making body.
The argument of the Downing Street spinners was this: yes, it sounds delightful that power is handed down to the grassroots but the reality will be a left-wing slate the unions will control. They will block all sorts of centrist manifesto ideas and push for the party to adopt a 35-hour working week. For example.
Some centrists in the party shuddered: they are looking through a looking glass for signs of themselves in opposition and this, and the sheer weighty process of it all, and the sheer weighty leftiness of it all, was an ugly premonition. But those who shuddered were outweighed by those who relished the prospect. The unions backed the proposal, and hey presto, it went through.Another premonition came from the behaviour of Compass who put on a platform Green MEP Caroline Lucas, running to take from Labour the Brighton Pavillion seat, but didn’t give any space to the Labour candidate Nancy Platts. They did this on the understanding that those on the left, not just in the Labour party, should be joining hands.
But it incensed those delegates otherwise cheering their victory for party democracy and again, those looking for images of themselves in 12 months saw a Labour party whittled down for the sake of some woolly broader left-wing platform. A good week for party democracy, it’s just – some looking into the looking glass wondered – what will be left of the party?
Harriet’s war
And as there’s one victory for party democracy, elsewhere the party high command battles to retain its grip on the selection process. Labour party aides say there are as many as 50 seats unfilled, in both safe and non-safe seats, and Harriet Harman has tasked the party with making sure half of all these seats select their candidates through all-women shortlists. Signs are that of selections held in the middle week of October, 50% were made to be all women shortlists – that’s four out of eight. Of course some MPs won’t announce they are standing down until much closer to the election to enable Number 10 to get their chosen candidates in. But until that point, there has to be some process and Harman has decided that process be half all-women shortlist.
Beneath the surface there is great upset at this – some female Labour MPs who were key in bringing AWS to prominence now feel that it is not the right method to select candidates for next year’s election – their thinking being that AWSs were right for a politically benign period but next year when the fight will be tight, it will pay for constituencies to have a candidate they have chosen themselves rather than someone foisted on them. Nonetheless, the NEC forced ahead putting AWS into both the parliamentary seats of Wigan, currently represented by two male MPs.
But there are encouraging signs that the NEC may be put back in its box on this. Burnley was due to have an AWS but kicked up and the NEC was forced to make the selection open. So Hilary Armstrong’s seat – so desperate they have asked Armstrong to reconsider standing down – is to be the test bed for the new NEC listening powers: her local party are resisting an AWS and have ordered a meeting with the NEC. Will this be the second victory for Labour party internal democracy in as many months?