It is not a left-right issue. Nor is it a Trojan horse for people who want to break the union link, do a deal with the Liberals, abolish local membership or any other dastardly plot. It is the answer to a simple question: is the Labour party fit for purpose? The question then, of course, is what is the Labour party’s purpose? In all the classic texts on political parties, the role of the mass party is said to be to aggregate disparate views, identify and promote candidates and leaders, create voting blocs within parliaments, and ‘make sense’ of democracy by focusing voters’ choices.

For socialists, though, there is a further consideration: how can the Labour party be an agent of change? If our purpose is simply the voluntary administration of the democratic process, like some kind of ‘friends of democracy’ group, we are doomed. Labour should become the natural home for social entrepreneurs, the catalyst for local campaigning and change, and the place to come if you want something doing. Local Labour party premises should be become incubators for local campaigns. Local party members should pool their talents to set up local groups and projects: community cafes, crèches, translation services, employment advice, bicycle repair shops, recycling schemes, guerrilla gardening, book clubs, community radio stations, or anything else that makes life marginally more tolerable. It won’t appeal to every party member. But it will appeal to many more people than the current rounds of administrative meetings and voter ID. If Labour is seen to be changing things in your neighbourhood, from painting the walls to fixing your bike, it would be the best antidote to pessimism, despair and the BNP.

This approach is true to Labour’s own roots in working-class culture and organisations such as the chapel, co-op, union and friendly society. Working-class communities ran their own health insurance schemes, adult education, and social clubs. They didn’t rely on the state. This is what inspired the Guild Socialists such as GDH Cole, who wanted political and industrial power to reside at the local level. The Guild Socialists wanted full-blown industrial democracy in the work-place, political democracy through local councils, and consumer democracy through cooperatives. The role of the state would be strategic, not all-encompassing. You could almost call it a ‘big society’.

By the 1940s, socialism had become synonymous with the central state, and Labour was wedded to the NHS, National Coal Board, British Rail and the rest. The other interpretation of socialism – as local control – was bulldozered and buried under the rubble of postwar Britain. GDH Cole said that the two great schisms in British socialism were between reformists and revolutionaries, and between centralisers and federalists. On the first, the argument was settled long ago (inside the Labour party, at least, if not on the ultra-left). On the second, the battle was fought, and lost, and needs to be fought once again.

It will be easy to debate party reform through the prism of the balance of voting figures on the NEC, NPF, and the electoral college. Harriet Harman announced that over 40,000 people have joined Labour at a successful fundraiser for new MPs Rachel Reeves and Emma Reynolds this week. If you’re so motivated about politics, so angry about the coalition government, so keen to protect your local schools and hospitals, how will you react if all you hear is endless debate about how to select the National Policy Forum? This is a debate which will leave most members cold. The review being led by Liam Byrne offers the opportunity for a broader appraisal of how we recruit and retain new members, what local parties should do with their time, what the proper balance between social, political, policymaking and campaign activity is, and what a modern relationship with the affiliated trade unions looks like.

Some on the Burma Road want a Labour civil war over obscure rule changes, if only to complete the set of early 1980s events: a Tory prime minister, riots on the streets of London, an economic crisis, and a royal wedding. I’m afraid that they may be waiting in vain for internecine warfare. Today’s Labour party has learned its lessons. That’s why we have nothing to fear from interventions such as Alan Johnson’s, Jon Cruddas’s or anyone else with something intelligent to add. If we can’t do it on the wrong end of five years in opposition, when can we?

Phoyo: travelswiss