For the last two months, many members of the Labour parties across Haringey’s two CLPs, Tottenham and Hornsey and Wood Green, have been involved in a new type of political engagement. Born of the rapidly changing education landscape and the increasingly polarised debates around Labour’s role within it – both locally and nationally – grassroots members decided to try a different approach.
Instead of battling it out angrily over the finite details of motions and amendments in GCs, ECs and BLPs, we decided to try and bring the Labour party membership together in an open, friendly and constructive conversation about the future of education. The process involved small round-table discussions, taking place in members’ homes and community centres, and involving cups of tea and glasses of wine. The resulting pamphlet, ‘A Series of Discussions between Labour members on the Future of Education in Haringey and beyond’, is the collaborative work of around 70 ordinary members of the two CLPs. You can read the pamphlet here.
There was considerable depth and breadth in the nature of those involved with this process. One of the most interesting, and perhaps most valuable, features of the participants as a whole was the extent to which they were drawn from beyond those of us who usually get involved with Labour party meetings. Huge numbers of parents, governors, grandparents, teachers and other educational professionals got involved, as well as many others, and made thoughtful, practical and valuable contributions to the process.
Supported from the start by the local MP, David Lammy, and by the Labour leader of Haringey council, Claire Kober, this work was explicitly designed to facilitate a wide ranging dialogue between members – critical, complimentary or anything in between. It was not an attempt to push any political agenda or to devise, support or condemn local or national policy on education. It was an acknowledgement that discussion and debate are essential to an effective Labour party, and we must never be afraid to engage internally with those with whom we disagree.
In the interests of transparency, I should point out that I disagreed with the anti-academies campaigns that took place in Haringey. I disagreed with their tone and their methods, but most importantly I disagreed with their aims. Despite the local authority’s well-meaning policies and what I presume were genuine heartfelt efforts by the governors and the staff, the schools selected to become academies were failing to provide a good enough education to children. In these circumstances, the possibility of external intervention from organisations able to demonstrate track records of turning around failing schools and providing outstanding education to children should have been seen as an opportunity, not a threat. Many others took a very different view.
The round-table discussions were a way of giving people the space to share ideas without feeling like they had to defend or defeat a particular position. They proved to be a very effective way of facilitating a genuine exploration of ideas and to really draw out the breadth and depth of knowledge within the Labour party membership in relation to education. The feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive and the end results, the pamphlet, submissions to Haringey’s education commission, the National Policy Forum and the shadow education team, and a very positive experience of engagement between Labour members, have all been extremely valuable.
Labour members are local people; we live on local streets, we go to work, we raise families, we see friends. If Labour policymakers are to truly understand the people they seek to serve they could do a lot worse than to engage widely – beyond the usual meetings structures – with the ordinary membership of the Labour party. I strongly recommend this model to those wishing to engage in a genuine, wide reaching, non-gate kept consultation with the Labour party membership in which all voices can and should be heard.
—————————————————————————————
Nora Mulready is a member of Tottenham Labour party and tweets @noramulready
—————————————————————————————
Credit: Louisa Thomson
This is a really interesting idea and from looking at the pamphlet involved lots of hard work too. It seems to have been a great method of engaging members in constructive debate. I am sure other CLPs can learn from your approach. I look forward to reading the pamphlet fully.
Round table discussions are a staple in the world of politics. What’s unusual is a 77 page pamphlet!
‘It was not an attempt to push any political agenda or to devise, support or condemn local or national policy on education,’
So what is the Labour party now? Have we given up condemning Michael Gove or coming up with alternative education policy? Let’s all sit round and drink tea and we’ll write down what you say. Is this how the party is challenging what Gove is doing to schools in Labour heartlands?
What conclusions did this ridiculous tome actually draw? I skimmed it. It looked like an A level essay that had got totally out of hand.
Blimey. Poor Nora. 70 odd pages of good Labour people saying sensible things about education and she still wants her own view to be the most important one. Why did so many have to give up their evenings to this project, rather than one which came to some decisions and recommendations?
It’s a real turn off, this deciding and voting business. Let’s just suck on a round table hob-nob.
It is sad to see from the hostile comments the depths of complacency in parts of the Labour Party about the need to find better ways of doing politics, within the party and outside of it. It gives the impression that some people, presumably those who are already highly active in the current structures of the party, do not want any attempt made to open up policy-making to the wider membership, who are not going to turn up to GCs, branches and so on because of their format and the time they consume.
True, the outcome of the discussions is lengthy, but that is because it reflects a diversity of views and now everyone who wishes to can have access to those views and be aware of what Labour Party members in this case agreed on and didn’t agree on. That can be used as the basis for further discussion and full policy creation that can reflect a diversity of views, and help explain to those who don’t agree why such decisions have been come to. At the moment, the party too often seems to assume that that a 12-11 vote on a motion to GC, for example, implies a unanimity of thought that isn’t even present amongst the very active in the party, let alone the wider membership. Education matters a great deal to the party and everyone has something to say on it – why not let them say it?
I was one of the facilitators in the project and from those involved (who, as Nora points out in her summary, were overwhelming not the usual activist base of the party), I have only heard positive things about the discussions and the process. Clearly, this type of project is not the be-all and end-all of Labour Party policy making, and no one is trying to suggest that it is. But it is another tool which could be used to explore issues of enormous importance to the whole party in a constructive manner, and it certainly shouldn’t be crudely denigrated simply because it is different.
I say well done. We are a modern party and it is not size fits all approach to anything. The fact is that different people have got engaged with the process and have discussed policies and ideas. Because what we need to win is the battle of ideas, I see that someone scorned the issue because there was no votes or decisions made, but that is partly the point, it is about engaging people, it not about a few right-on resolutions. Not everyone who is in the party wants to go to meetings but they do want to be heard and want to listen and discuss. So Nora I say well done.