Parties need pluralism

Ed Miliband at #lab14

I was writing about something else, and wrote this on party management. It’s coherent, but doesn’t belong in what I am writing, and so I thought I’d share it now,

“Your Party” is planning a Sortition based founding conference. It has probably chosen this for reasons of control but, “Your Party”’s problems occur in many parties, and I am reminded of the white paper “The (Unintended) Consequences of New Labour: Party Leadership vs Party Management in the British Labour Party…, a white paper to the PSA” by Emanuelle Averil on New Labour, which examines its managerialism and the destruction of its activist commitment and influence.

The paper was published in 2015 before the General Election. I read it in 2017 and strangely ended up sitting next to her at Conference ’19. I posted my comments in a blog, A note on Emanuelle Averil’s “the unintended consequences of New Labour” and in that article I selected some quotes. While being 20 years old, these comments seem equally relevant today, particularly about the Labour Party. I quote her on how suppressing the activist layer was mistaken and led to a failure to connect to the electorate, how factionalism suppresses plurality which made renewal impossible, how triangulation led to voter alienation and its control freakery led to a toxification of its image.

We might debate about the noughties, but it’s clearly true today. …

Immigration based on compassion and dignity

Immigration based on compassion and dignity

The Government have announced major regressive changes to the Asylum regime. These are all regressive, & vindictive. They must be opposed, and those MPs & Peers opposing these measures supported. This article looks at a couple of statements in opposition, and points at the Momentum model motion. While various press sources seem to have seen the proposals, I can't find the formal government statement. (10:57), see overleaf for more ...

Labour’s membership

a red rose

The Labour Party staff stopped reporting membership to  the NEC earlier this year, but they reported the end of year membership to Annual Conference and of course the electoral commission.

A number of years ago, I made  a chart  showing Labour’s membership from 1989 to 2021; I have just updated it using the end of 2024 figures.

There are stories published that Reform have overtaken Labour in terms of membership numbers; it would take an extraordinary amount of departures for this to be true. This article in the New Statesman published under a pseudonym as a gossip column is headlined as such and points at Labour List reporting the membership in Feb as 309,000. …

#Lab25 will get to debate rejoining the EU

Labour Conference 2019 from the balcony

At the General Committee of Lewisham North last night we agreed to send a motion calling for the abolition of the two child benefit cap, and also proposed a reference back of the NPF report. I intiallly proposed the words in a blog article posted last week. This article repeats some of the text of the reference back and my notes for my moving speech, and right of reply, as it was opposed by both those who think that being outside the EU is a good thing, and those who fear Farage and think the time is wrong. For those details, read overleaf ...

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

Thoughts on Labour’s NPF Report ’25

This article looks at the development of Labour's Policy as its annual Conference approaches. It looks at the rules commitment to "voting in parts", and reproduces an NPF report reference back motion on the subject of the relationship with the EU that I shall take to my local party. My motion calls to rejoin the single market immediately and to promise to rejoin the EU in the next manifesto. To read the whole article, use the "Read More" button ...

More on the ‘great reset’ meeting

Kier Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen in a conference room

In an article/podcast in inews, entitled "Starmer's Government sees closer ties with the EU as a key part of plans to ramp up economic growth",  the issue of deals with global partners to be a key part of trying to make Britain a more attractive destination for investment is allegedly discussed. See the full article at 'RemovePaywalls.com'. I made some notes inspired or provoked by this article, which was published in late July. Although much of this is extracted quotes, I make some comments. For more, use the 'Read More' button ...

Getting involved in politics

GMB banners on a march/demo

I went to London region's fringe meeting. These are held inside the conference centre and must be sponsored by a region. This meeting was called “Getting involved in politics”. It’s platform consisted of Dawn Butler MP, Robbie Scott (TULO), Miriam Myrwitch (London Labour), and two GMB voluntary officers from the Labour Party branch and the Parliamentary Staffs branch. I don’t know if the platform learnt anything, but some probing questions were asked, mainly about the Labour Party. This article uses my notes to report in the meeting, and I cross-reference and comment on Labour's rules on debate, social media and bullying. The full article is overleaf ...