I have been watching with some amusement and not a small level of annoyance various members of parliament and party grandees playing out a back-and-forth in the blogosphere over whether a future Labour administration should govern with the Liberal Democrats.

Personally I am focused on winning a Labour majority and I would prefer to see Nick Clegg nominated as the first person sent on a manned mission to Mars. However, I think that in the event of a hung parliament it should be members and not MPs who should decide whether and who we enter into any coalition with.

This is not without precedent. In December the German SPD polled all of its 475,000 members on the controversial issue of a ‘Grand Coalition’ with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats. Seventy-eight per cent – 370,000 – members voted in the ballot, with 75 per cent preferring a deal with the devil to another period in the electoral wilderness.

In subsequent polling 92 per cent of members said they thought giving members a say was a good idea and 60 per cent said they feel satisfied or very satisfied with the level of member participation and engagement in the SPD – can you imagine 60 per cent of Labour party members feeling satisfied with the way they can currently participate in the party’s decision-making?

This should not be done in isolation. It should form part of a package of reforms giving members more power in the party.

Real empowerment of party members was a missed opportunity in the Collins review. Ed Miliband should announce a new review once May’s elections are out of the way to be carried out over the summer in collaboration with Young Labour, Labour Students, constituency Labour parties and individual members and reporting at conference with a series of recommendations members can vote on which will strengthen their role in the party and continue to open up our rigid and outdated structures to our millions of supporters.

Better yet, the proposals could be put to a One Member, One Vote ballot of all members – start as you mean to go on!

Right now the only influence members have over the party is the selection of candidates. While I have long believed that we should open up this process to our supporters, I do fervently believe that members need a greater say over decision-making in the party. This should start with a substantial role in policymaking and the ability to decide who and if we should govern in a coalition.

Critics may say that this would take longer and we would be left without a government for an extended period. We all remember those five days in May. The reality of that period is that we did have a government – led by Gordon Brown acting as a caretaker until an agreement was reached. That is right and proper. It was the Tory press whipping up a frenzy and creating a crisis. No such crisis befell Germany while a considered debate was taking place between parties. What could be more important than who runs the country? Looking at the aftermath of 2010 I am sure many of us wish more time and thought had been put into what happened next.

Meaningful engagement of party members is something I have made a core pledge in my campaign to be elected to represent members on the NEC and I will continue to push and argue for it at every opportunity.

Now let’s end the Westminster bubble chatter and get back to making sure we never need to ballot party members on joining a coalition government.

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Kevin Peel is a councillor on Manchester city council and tweets @kevpeel