There is an almost comic – or perhaps tragic – disparity between the fate of Refounding Labour and the ‘citizens’ primary’ held over the last two weekends which chose Francois Hollande as the Socialist party’s candidate to challenge Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s French presidential election.
Despite all of the rhetoric, Ed Miliband’s brave plans to ‘widen our horizons to our supporters and the wider public’, ended up being so much less than both he intended and the party needed. Yes, he managed to make more of a reality of the ‘registered supporters’ scheme launched by Hazel Blears during her brief time as party chair. But Miliband was unable to persuade the party’s powers that be that registered supporters should get a real say in the selection of candidates and in any future leadership or deputy leadership election.
So while registered supporters will be able to entitled to take part in the latter, they have been allocated a meagre three per cent – rising to nine per cent once their numbers reach 250,000 – share of the electoral college. In some respects, this could prove worse than the status quo: how much fun will the media have if hundreds of thousands of members of the public who have become registered supporters vote one way, but the party’s byzantine leadership election rules deliver the election to another candidate?
Moreover, registered supporters will have no say at all in the selection of Labour’s parliamentary candidates in the run-up to the next election. Even Progress’ modest proposal that local party members should retain the right to draw up the shortlist and then vote on whether to open the process up and allow registered supporters to join them in picking the eventual nominee was deemed a step too far.
Compare this with the actions of our sister party across the Channel. The PS has a similar level of membership to Labour but opted to allow all those willing to pay €1 and sign a declaration that they support the ‘values of the left’ to vote in their presidential primary. The party also gave a vote to all those who will be 18 come next spring’s elections and all the PS’ junior members aged 15 upwards. As most supporters of primaries in Britain advocate, the nominating process remained under the party’s control with those wishing to stand needing to attract five per cent of any one of the party’s five constituencies (MPs, NEC members, and mayors of large towns or regional and departmental councils).
The two weekends of voting, which narrowed the original field of six candidates to a straight choice yesterday between Hollande and Martine Aubry, have given the nominee what the BBC’s man in Paris termed ‘a dream start’ to his bid for the Elysee Palace. Over three million voters participated with up to five million watching the series of high-profile TV debates which preceded the election. Nearly 80 per cent of those polled said the primary was a good thing. The nominal participation fee raised a over €3.5 million – more than enough, according to Akash Paun of the Institute for Government, to cover the considerable costs the PS had to shell out to establish 9,000 polling stations across France and purchase expensive electronic equipment to collate the results. Sarkozy’s conservative allies, who once disparaged the process, are now considering using it to pick their nominee for 2017.
So far the PS’ decision to ‘dare more democracy’ has more than paid off. Has Labour the courage to follow suit?
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Robert Philpot is director of Progress
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Very interesting, and I agree with the sentiment. Though that only adds up to £388 to fund each polling station if there were no other costs at all. If we did it, it would have to be by post to be affordable. You also haven’t touched on how much the candidates spent between them in their campaigning.
That said, these are just wrinkles to be ironed out. As a party we still haven’t got comfortable with democracy; not for the public nor for party members. Until we start seeing democracy as part of our mission, we won’t be able to go to the country with any such innovation and expect faith in our motives
However successful was the PSF primary, and it would be churlish to deny that it was, it is not a good model for electing Labour’s leader since the French and British positions are simply not comparable. Whereas in France, the person being selected is a candidate for the presidency, a post with considerable power but whose power is also counter-balanced by that of the French Congress, the post for which Labour’s leader is a candidate is very different. The British Prime Minister is not set apart from Parliament but first among equals in their cabinet and in the House of Commons. Accountability, checks and balances come from within the Cabinet, Parliament and also the Labour Party itself. Creating the claim of a powerful popular mandate would serve only to reinforce the concentration of unaccountable power at the centre which developed during the Blair years with ultimately disastrous consequences: the loss of 5 million votes and ejection from office.
I seriously doubt it.
Wonder if I can become a “registered supporter”, might be better than being a member lol.
Are we using “purchase expensive electronic equipment to collate the results” now ? Thought the kind of equipment, needed to do such a thing was a myth lol
I think Cllr Baldwin makes a good point, especially with the free day at conference.
How many “during these difficult times” will pay membership when the cheaper option with almost the same influence generates the same results.