Six months ago, Ed Miliband pledged to end the machine politics that had disfigured the selection of Labour’s candidate in Falkirk, one of the party’s safest seats.

Tomorrow, with the passing of the deadline for submissions, the review which Miliband established at the time under Labour’s former general secretary, Ray Collins, draws to a close. Over the next month, Collins will have to finalise the package that will go to Labour’s National Executive Committee on 4 February. One month later, the resolution approved by the NEC will go to a special conference at London’s Excel Centre. Half of the delegates at it will have been chosen by local constituency parties, the other half by the trade unions.

The special conference will mark an important staging post in Miliband’s effort to establish Labour as a credible party of government. But the party’s history of special conferences is not an entirely happy one. In 1981, the Wembley special conference precipitated the departure of the ‘Gang of Four’, and the splintering of the centre-left vote which helped the Conservatives to a series of election victories. Fourteen years later, by contrast, the special conference which approved Tony Blair’s new Clause IV heralded Labour’s long-awaited return to the electoral playing field.

So how can Miliband ensure that his special conference has an impact akin to that of 1995?

First, Miliband’s demand in July that individual trade unionists should no longer be automatically affiliated to the party must be approved. As Miliband said in July: ‘In the 21st century, it just doesn’t make sense for anyone to be affiliated to a political party unless they have chosen to do so.
Men and women in trade unions should be able to make a more active, individual choice on whether they become part of our party.’ With Unite, Labour’s biggest affiliate, indicating its acceptance of this proposal, this important change looks likely to be passed.

Second, the manner in which Labour elects its leader must be radically reformed. In 2010, the third of the electoral college in which trade unionists vote had a pitiful turnout of just nine per cent. No wonder: most unions blocked leadership candidates from canvassing or communicating with this part of the electorate, preferring instead to simply send their members material about the candidate which the union executives had decided to endorse. Instead, Labour should move towards a system of one member, one vote with party members and those trade unionists who have decided they want to affiliate to the party having two-thirds of the vote, while members of parliament retain one-third of the votes. Such a change would allow individual trade unionists who support Labour a real chance to participate in the choice of who leads their party, while also helping to ensure that the winner commands the support of the parliamentary party.

Third, the National Executive Committee plays a crucial role in Labour’s internal governance: appointing the party’s general secretary and setting the rules and timetables for selections and leadership elections, for instance. As part of a new relationship between the trade unions and the Labour party, the membership of the NEC needs major changes. At present, the unions hold 12 seats and those elected by party members half that number. Through the levy on their allowances, local councillors are now the party’s biggest single source of income. They are also the people who are running towns and cities up and down the country, making tough choices and attempting to put Labour values into action. However, they are represented by only two members of the NEC. While it is not unreasonable for the unions to wish to retain their 12 seats on the NEC, this gross underrepresentation of party members and Labour councillors needs to end. The number of NEC members chosen by each should, therefore, be doubled.

Finally, Miliband was right to argue in July that Labour supporters should have a greater say in the selection of the candidates the party will ask them to vote for. Labour’s special conference should, therefore, approve Miliband’s suggestion that the party’s candidate for the London mayoralty should be chosen by a primary open to all Labour supporters in the capital. Labour’s leader is also right to want to ensure that, where a constituency party’s membership is so low as to be unrepresentative of the local community, such a primary should be held. Primaries should, therefore, be automatically triggered in Labour-held seats where party membership falls below 200. Such a rule would, indeed, have prevented the whole sorry affair which originally characterised Labour’s selection in Falkirk.

Opponents of Miliband’s plans portray themselves as defenders of Labour’s historic link with the trade unions. But their attempt to preserve the status quo in aspic does neither Labour nor individual trade union members any favours. Instead, the party’s new year resolution should be to mend, not end, the union link and, by so doing, give Miliband a special conference that underlines Labour’s seriousness about governing. Proving that he can change the party, as Blair found in 1995, will help demonstrate to the voters that Miliband can change the country.

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Robert Philpot is director of Progress

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