There are two futures for political parties. Only one will save Labour

After the last election, Labour was a broken party. Very little thinking had been done at a senior level about models of party organisation – it is hardly stuff to set pulses racing. So a timid report, Refounding Labour, was rushed out. There was an available organisation to adopt and co-opt – Movement for Change. So that was in too. Job done. Machine back on the road – only it was not fixed.

These missed opportunities lie at the heart of the recent row about selections and union influence. The simple fact is that a narrow, inflexible, weak party, kept going by a small number of activists is always open to manipulation – by unions, by the leadership, by local vested interests. It has ever been thus but as the party has withered it has become more and more an issue. So what is actually a crisis of the party in the modern era has been reframed as an issue of union and party relations. It is much bigger than that.

So I actually have some sympathy with Len McCluskey’s protests of unfairness as the union has been singled out when the problem is much wider. He might have got more sympathy had he not launched an attempted purge of Blairites. But let bygones be bygones. There is a more important issue at stake – how does the Labour party function in an era of weakening traditional parties? It is not just Labour that faces this challenge. Pretty much every traditional party – left or right – across Europe is doing so too.

There are two separate questions that need to be answered: how should the party be structured and how should it operate? In terms of structure, the Conservative party has kept to the traditional model and it will not even publish its membership numbers. It is obvious why not. This is one area where the review of Labour’s relationship with the trade unions being led by former party general secretary Ray Collins could make a difference: by promoting and encouraging a networked party, an appreciation that issues drive modern democracy to a greater extent, and supporter primaries as a means of engaging a wider range of voices in Labour’s internal democracy.

A warning is necessary here, though. It will not be enough just to open access to party democratic structures. People will want a say in the content as well. Particularly at a local level, this will mean that the traditional party paternalism will not wash. People will want to discuss and influence local decisions too. They will soon lose faith if this is not facilitated. This is where community organising can have something to offer – especially where Labour is strong politically but democratically weak.

In terms of operations, it is clear where the Conservatives are heading. They will fight a big money, big systems, big data, negative campaign. It is easy to see why Labour will have to do it differently for financial reasons. But that is not the only rationale. A party that is porous, connected, embedded, and a participant in local and online-enabled democracy will be a source of enduring strength. Resuscitated local parties will contribute to a rejuvenated local democracy. The problem is that it is difficult to see this in place before the next election. Those two wasted post-Refounding Labour years weigh heavily.

So Labour will need to do something significant in the short term. After 2010, community organising was embraced despite the fact it has no track record of winning elections. There were two models that were ignored. The anti-racist campaign HOPE not Hate, and Labour’s campaign in Birmingham Edgbaston in 2010. Both studied Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign in depth and learned its core lesson, some of which did come from community organising but was adapted for an electoral context. Here you have two campaigns that combined issues, organisation, online networking and mobilisation, fundraising, and, most importantly, they worked.

The people who ran those campaigns, together with the team that ran Ed Miliband’s energetic leadership campaign online and in the field, need to be assembled to put together a Labour grassroots campaign for 2015. It will not work without an absolutely clear national argument coupled with a set of symbolic policies – another lesson from Obama 2008. However, while structural reform proceeds at a slow pace, operations can be rapidly changed. All the individuals were willing in 2010. My guess is that they could be persuaded again.

There is a constant pushback to these arguments – you cannot do Obama without Obama. It is a statement of the obvious really. The opportunity for Miliband is to make himself the most accessible leader of modern times: let go, in other words. It will be messy at times but a leader who is willing to engage in real conversation will be a considerable asset. The means of conversation are there: use them. For example, Labour’s social media strategy is pretty dire – in broadcast mode in the main. It is time to get conversational.

In the coming years, parties will go in two ways. There will be monolithic, machine-type parties that basically buy their place in the political market through large donations. The Conservatives will pursue this route. Then there will be connected, self-financing, democratically active, adaptable parties. Labour has not made its choice yet. There are considerable risks in the transition and hybrid forms will remain. Market rules will be important – a cap on individual donations at a low level is a necessary corollary of structural change. Structural and operational change will need to go together.

Essentially, Miliband is now playing catch-up but at least a real attempt is being made to create a party adapted to the modern political and cultural environment. His recent moves have triggered a series of unforeseen consequences – with the right approach they can be mostly good.

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Anthony Painter is a contributing editor to Progress and author of Left Without a Future? Social Justice in Anxious Times

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Photo: Louisa Thomson