Labour is healthier when it is a broad church, says Ellie Reeves
Ellie Reeves sees her decade on the National Executive Committee come to an end at this Labour party conference. At 25, she was the youngest person to be elected to the constituency section – ‘no one has beaten that record since’, she tells us – having served as the national chair of Labour Students, the party’s further and higher education wing. She topped the moderate section of the ballot and beat renowned comedian Eddie Izzard to be the first runner-up in this year’s ballot. Her 70,000 plus voters will be hoping an opportunity presents itself over the next two years for Reeves to replace one of the Momentum bloc who now occupy all six of the members’ places.
Normally both moderate and hard-left slates succeed in getting members elected in this section. ‘I think it is healthier to have a mix.’ She warns her successors to not ignore ‘a large group – a large minority maybe – but significant group of members nonetheless’ who will feel they ‘don’t have much of a voice on the NEC any more’. ‘We are obviously a broad church party and not every single member of the Labour party supports the same person to be leader obviously. That should be respected.’
Though she admits to feeling sad that her time on the NEC is coming to an end, Reeves, who has a son with member of parliament John Cryer, is looking forward to getting her life back. ‘I think sometimes people forget NEC members aren’t paid politicians but volunteers. We give up our time to serve and it’s a lot of time. It’s at least a day a week. It’s something that we do because we love the party.’ She would like to be remembered as ‘independent-minded’. ‘When you’re there in meetings, you have to make decisions based on what members are telling you. You receive hundreds of emails and voicemails. At the end of the day you’re there to represent members. I hope the members feel as though I did that well.’
‘Young people and young members were a priority for me’, she tells us. In her time on the NEC while Labour was in government she worked closely with the then NEC youth rep Stephanie Peacock and instigated the government review of the minimum wage for younger workers. What followed was a whole new wage rate for 16- and 17-year-olds. Later she achieved ‘the new “youth rate” and the full-time dedicated youth officer of the party. There was always a big thing about Labour Students having resources and having full-time staff members’, she explains, ‘but Young Labour not having the same support. That’s now largely sorted.
‘I was also on the NEC at the time when registered supporters were given an increased role’, she recalls. ‘Up to 10 per cent of the electoral college’. However, ‘at the time it wasn’t really about people signing up so they could vote … it [was about] opening up, making the party more accessible … about reaching beyond our comfort zone’. ‘It’s normal for you and I to be members of a political party but the vast majority of the population don’t feel that way. It was kind of like a stepping stone.’
Restoring the electoral college – previously equal sections given to the parliamentary party, members and trade unions and Socialist Societies – is something Tom Watson, the party’s deputy leader, has said he supports. Would going back to the 30-30-30-10 electoral college be an idea for Labour going forward? ‘Yes’, she says, wishing the initial proposal in Refounding Labour had been trialled before moving, in the wake of the Falkirk scandal, to the abolition of the electoral college.
Definitely going to conference is the hard-left Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s proposal to reduce the threshold to stand for leader known as the ‘McDonnell amendment’. What does she make of the idea? ‘When we were dealing with the Collins review rule changes ahead of the special conference the NEC had a lot of discussion about what the thresholds should be. It wasn’t something that was plucked out of thin air. If you reduce the threshold from 15 to five per cent you call into question ‘Clause One’ of the Labour rulebook to maintain “in parliament”, not a spokesperson but “a parliamentary party” able to replace the Tories. I believe in parliamentary socialism and I do believe that the leader of the Labour party does have to have the support of the parliamentary Labour party in order to be an effective leader of the opposition. Little did we know at the time that people would lend their nominations to someone [without that support].’
Reeves was first elected to the NEC having represented the trade unions on a seminal court case for the Gate Gourmet workers and for Ucatt on blacklisting. Does she worry about the growing trend by some to colonise being a trade unionist for only those of the ‘left’ of the party? ‘I’d hate to see that being a trade unionist or calling yourself a trade unionist means that you’re sort of very hard left [of the party]. I don’t think that that is how the majority of trade unionists would define themselves.’ She hopes that, ‘Whoever wins will seek to unite rather than alienate people that perhaps didn’t support them.’
But the signs are not good. When Ruth Smeeth was attacked in front of Labour’s leader, something dawned on Reeves. She confesses to being disappointed when later a ‘video emerged of the leader in conversation with the person who attacked Ruth. I don’t know what was said. [I] don’t need to know what was said, but I know what wasn’t said’. In these circumstances, ‘I think that the abusers need to be called out by the leadership straight away. I don’t see that happening.’ ‘I, for one, have called for a code of conduct for social media.’ But she believes that it needs to go further and it is for the leader to sort out his own supporters. Online ‘his campaign, Momentum, or the leader’s office need to set up an account to call out people when it is done in his name. “Delete your tweet or your Twibbon”, it should demand.’ Plus, ‘the Compliance Unit need to be given the resources they need to do the job. There is so much about at the moment’, she says, ‘you lose track of who’s getting what abuse.’
It all plays into an unhealthy culture in the party. The YouGov Labour leadership poll that came out in September reported that 27 per cent of current party members will consider leaving if Corbyn is re-elected. What is her message to these people, many of whom will have voted for her over the last decade? ‘You need to stay. You need to stay because politics is sometimes a long game and if you don’t stay then it would be very difficult for you to effect change in the future.’ This is not the last we have heard of Reeves.
Ellie, thank you for your work and your views, not all of which that you gave here I agree with. Over the the years, I’ve had a growing appreciation of the importance and value of trying first and foremost to listen to, and account for all views, whether I’m acting socially or alone. That is why, even though I’m a strong supporter or Jeremy Corbyn’s policies, I have taken time to read articles in publications such as Progress (and the Telegraph, Mail. etc., for that matter).
I’m sure that this website, as well as yourself, and the large number of supporters of Owen Smith – and, indeed, of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and Ed Miliband – will all agree that cooperation in politics is far more successful a strategy than division. This is why I continue to find self-descriptions such as “moderate”, as opposed to projected descriptions like “hard left” not only unhelpful, but a big part of the problem besetting Labour right now.
Political Parties are, and should be, subject to periodic change and development, as emerging real conditions force us all in society to redefine our politics. The Labour Party is, and should be, no exception to the rule in this regard.
During such changes – and this applies more so today than for a long time – the whole structure feels unstable. There will be people who see such changes as a threat. However, democracy – another important guiding strategy – hopefully serves to mitigate the damage during these fragile times. The best people will seek to smooth the flow of change, emphasising the change’s good points, rather than denigrating its bad points, even though they are themselves unsure about the overall approach of such changes, because they see their responsibility to the whole as more important than their individually held views or interests.
Unfortunately, some refuse to accept that things are different, and and some will even work to undermine the forces of change, and may even think they have the power by hook or crook to prevent it altogether. History shows that the best that these people can ever hope for is a pyrrhic victory, which achieves their aim at the expense of the very structure that they thought themselves to be defending.
Of course, the debate as to whether such changes are helpful or not is expected. One could even argue over which side is entrenched and which open to change. However, the important point I’m trying to emphasise is that the far sighted amongst us will consider that conducting such arguments respectfully, and without the use of divisive terms, is if anything MORE important than the outcome of the argument itself. I hope that you, and those who both work on and read this web site, will reconsider whether using the term “colleague” or “friend” might be more appropriate for the future after Saturday.
I think it’s a bit rich to talk about representation regarding the CLP reps for the NEC, when the PLP is completely unrepresentative of the views of the members.
‘I think it is healthier to have a mix.’
I absolutely agree. Wouldn’t it be nice if the PLP had a mix of left and right, instead of about 20 left wing MPs and the rest either centre or right wing.
‘I was also on the NEC at the time when registered supporters were given an increased role’
‘at the time it wasn’t really about people signing up so they could vote … it [was about] opening up, making the party more accessible … about reaching beyond our comfort zone’
You make the party more accessible by respecting democracy in all its forms. The treatment of new members suggests that democracy is only OK if the participants agree with the views of the PLP. Also clearly these new members, who despite efforts by certain MPs to portray them as some kind of ultra-left troytskite cult, are simply people who want to be engaged in politics at the grassroots level, are evidently outside the comfort zone of most Labour MPs. They don’t seem to be handling it too well, perhaps they should consider broadening their views.
‘I believe in parliamentary socialism@
That’s an oxymoron
Perhaps you believe in the democratic route to parliamentary socialism. I’m actually not in favour of reducing the threshold from 15 to 5% as it doesn’t deal with the main problem – the disconnect between the PLP and membership (democratic problem) – it will only exacerbate it. I’d rather it remained at 15%, with a return to shadow cabinet elections, alongside mandatory reselection. This would strengthen links between members and the PLP, PLP and the leader, and members/PLP/leader and the shadow cabinet. Far better system. I note that Reeves doesn’t agree with anything proposed by the ‘hard-left’, as you put it. Perhaps she should compromise rather than hoping to transfer as much power as possible from members to the PLP. I suspect had 100,000 Conservative voters joined last year to vote for Liz Kendall we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
People shouldn’t leave if Corbyn is elected, but if they stay they (members) and PLP need to respect democracy. They should also endorse a return of mandatory reselection as the only solution to the gap between members and PLP is the key democratic route to the PLP.