REFOUNDING LABOUR: A PARTY FOR THE NEW GENERATION Consultation response from the Young Fabians
Adrian Prandle and Sam Bacon with Anna-Joy Rickard, Daniel el Bamford and Brian Duggan
June 2011 www.youngfabians.org.uk
This, like all publications of the Young Fabians and Fabian Society, represents not the collective views of the Society, but only the views of the individual authors
The Young Fabians As the youth section of the Fabian Society, which founded the Labour Party over 100 years ago, it seems fitting that the Young Fabians is given this opportunity to help ‘refound’ Labour. It is important to remember that ‘the new generation’ stretches beyond the party itself and the Young Fabians, with a 25% increase in membership over the last year and even greater increases in member activism, is a thriving democratic membership organisation, very proud to be part of the Labour family. Our membership is nationwide and consists of students at school, college and university, and those working in and out of politics, across the public, private and third sectors. There is a wide range of experience and involvement in the Party. Recent activity has included: leading, with the Labour Staff Network, the largest delegation to the Obama presidential campaign in 2008; the fourth iteration of our successful member policy groups; workshops for members (e.g. on writing for publication and on making political impact from outside of London); the Young Fabian Middle East Programme; the quarterly publication of our own magazine, Anticipations; a fast-growing blog and interactive web presence; plans for a new schools programme; and our ‘Science and Society’ and Future of Finance’ Networks, which seek to reach out to progressives in professions which can struggle to get heard in the Labour movement or where left-wing ideas can often get lost or seem unwelcome. This, and other activity, informs our response – and we will be more than happy to share more information upon request.
Refounding Labour The willingness to put everything on the table in reforming the Labour Party is to be commended. At the same time, the scale of the task put in front of Peter Hain and his team – and ultimately the NEC – is huge. It can’t be emphasised enough that there is unlikely to be an easy fix and that a few rule changes at 2011 annual conference are unlikely to suddenly transform the way the party works. Much deeper, we need a shift in culture across all levels of the party, one that includes fixing our internal relationships as we go out and try and build new relationships with those outside of the movement. We urge the NEC and indeed the whole party to be open-minded and flexible, to initiate change swiftly, but be patient with results. And to recall our core value of solidarity and our desire to understand the difficulties of others so as to attempt to ameliorate them. We must recognise the benefits of being a mass membership movement and also remember the necessity of leadership. This response cannot cover everything in the consultation paper. We have focussed on issues we have worked on, issues Young Fabian members believe are important, and issues which we think the NEC should prioritise. We have tried to convey principles alongside practical ideas and experiences. We have not attributed costs to that which we advocate – but it was notable from campaigning in both the 2004 and 2008 elections in the US, that some of the best practice came cost free. Instead of cash, they were driven by people; both members and supporters. Whilst Refounding Labour recognises the contribution of activists in 2010, we feel the Party still has a long way to go to truly utilise its strongest resource – not just those that are prepared to give every second of their spare time but those that want to offer just a fraction; members or non-members it shouldn’t matter to an accessible, unifying political party.
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‘Transforming our Party" – a Young Fabian special project group In 2010, as a spin-off of our policy development groups, we ran a member-led group looking at Labour Party reform. Ideas were published on the Young Fabian blog, in Anticipations magazine, and ultimately as a contribution to our pamphlet, The New Generation.1 Jessica Studdert2, Chair of the group, wrote: “For Young Fabians and young party members, unscarred by the turbulence of the 1980s and of a generation which experiences political activism more directly and interactively, it is clear that many people participate in the Labour Party in spite of, not because of, how it is structured as an organisation … If the Labour Party does not have a clear strategy for retaining [the new members] and channelling their energy, they will leave as quickly as they signed up.” The published contribution from this work should be read in conjunction with this consultation response: please find it attached. Here are just some of the suggestions:
Reinventing Constituency Labour Parties and priorities for officer training Power in the organisation must be rebalanced from the centre to the local level: the priority of central party and regional office activity must be facilitating platforms for action and building capacity locally Skills audits of members could more effectively match people to different roles and tasks The rulebook needs to rebalance between the ‘what’ of party structures, to the ‘how’ of explaining the range of activities a CLP might pursue Term limits for EC officers of approximately 2-3 years would better develop the talents and skills of individuals who would have more opportunity to progress whilst providing more members with more opportunities Accessible, high quality training for local officers in: •
how to run a good meeting
•
active participation and listening techniques
Cultivating and spreading high quality local organisations “Beacon CLPs” would be those that build broad coalitions of support around local campaigns, open their meetings to all members, create ongoing dialogue with local voters and energetically pursue the recruitment of supporters and members Beacon CLPs should be rewarded with more control over their own affairs, such as the ability to select their own local council candidates when they want, and financial bonuses for supporter and membership growth Beacon CLPs could offer mentoring, shadowing opportunities or apprenticeships to officers with less experience from other CLPs Membersnet needs to become a more open, workable and facilitative networking platform to share ideas and compare best practice across CLPs
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The New Generation (Oct 2010) is downloadable from http://www.youngfabians.org.uk/content/view/389/5/. Also a co-author of the Fabian Society’s Facing Out pamphlet which presented research evidence to argue for the need for the modernisation of progressive political parties: http://www.fabians.org.uk/publications/ideas-pamphlets/facing-outhow-party-politics-must-change-to-build-a-progressive-society 2
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Beacon CLPs, who have demonstrated active engagement locally, could be rewarded with more of a voice in the policy-making process. If CLPs show they are representative of their communities then their voice has more legitimacy and should have more influence.
Membership growth and the affiliates An effective membership strategy works at all levels, from leadership speeches to facilitating CLP’s active growth. One area it could be more active than present is working with and supporting the growth of the membership organisations affiliated to the Party. Unlike the trade unions and, with the exception of the post-2010 effect, unlike the Party’s direction of travel, the Fabian Society – especially the Young Fabians – has growing membership that is reaching record highs. This suggests potential the party could exploit with some arms’ length support. Both Cooperative Youth and the Young Fabians have age limits beyond Young Labour, and many of the trade unions. In the Young Fabians we notice quite a few people who find us in their late 20s - they've been out of university and in work for a while and many have found their way into politics on their own so it has taken them a few years, meaning they miss the Young Labour stage and don't get picked up by the party's programmes for young people. This group, in their late 20s and early 30s, are more likely than those under 27 to be settled, or settling, in a local area and more likely to be on higher membership rates and could be a key group to attract to the party. The Young Fabians, for some people, can act as a bridge to party activism and membership. We offer a route for young people who are interested in politics, have Labour values but are reluctant to take the plunge and join the party: “Whilst I am 90% sure I am Labour, I am not as ideologically certain as the Labour activists I see and hear.” However, the key to getting these reluctant joiners to sign-up is providing a low-risk environment in which they can test their ideas and develop politically. The affiliates provide a Labour-friendly space for people to develop politically without feeling they have over-committed or are sacrificing integrity; despite the close bond with the party, they are crucially distinct from it. This journey is natural: the more comfortable they are, and the more involved people have opportunity to be, the clearer they become about their values and their politics. The Party can aid its membership growth by thinking about how it can boost the membership strategies of its affiliates. The independence of affiliates is crucial to this process, so couldn’t be undermined, but potential support could come through recognisable Labour figures plugging the various affiliates at school / student talks, in media appearances, and connecting Movement for Change to Labour affiliates where possible.
PolicyPolicy-making in a membership organisation At the heart of a successful policy-making process for Labour lies an unwritten contract between political leadership and party membership. All political parties face times when the leadership is disappointed by the expressions of party members; and in recent years we have seen party members become increasingly frustrated due to an impression of not being listened to. We need to be grown up about this. There will be times when political judgment needs to be exercised and the membership may not get its way, and there will be times when the instinct within the PLP may not be close enough to what people up and down the country think and believe. Annual conference, with its high media profile compared to the National Policy Forum (NPF), is a key test for making this work in a comradely yet productive way. The solution may well be to articulate this ‘contract’ in writing – not rules but informal expectations for both sides and a sensible flexibility. With rights come responsibilities you might say.
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In The New Generation it was suggested that ‘Beacon CLPs’ who had demonstrated non-party involvement from their local community in policy debate and consultation could be rewarded with greater voice in the party’s national policy-making process. Being representative adds legitimacy so fulfilling the responsibility to bring in voters’ views deserves the right to have your voice taken seriously. The broad brush policy commissions didn’t appear to facilitate detailed and useful debate. That their published papers so closely resembled government policy in the years approaching 2010, implied that the member part of policy formulation was pointless. Instead of negotiating to nothingness, we would advocate a two part process of member input. Articulating separately new policy ideas from our core values and principles gives, in the latter, a clear set of criteria to judge the former on – be they ideas from individuals, CLPs or shadow cabinet. The NPF would be the arbiter but our flexible ‘contract’ allows the parliamentary leadership to adapt to changing contexts. Whilst we could probably debate the ins and outs of our core values for the rest of the parliament and beyond, ultimately we do need to be able to confidently articulate what Labour is for. An online ‘ideas bank’ should be publicly available all year round. Ideas should be backed by evidence in any form – it may be academic research, but just as validly it may be a constituency survey, or qualitative input from local policy forums. Members of the public may, for example, post their views on how the policies would affect them (the perverse outcomes of tax changes could be spotted early for example). NPF reps, the wider membership, and Labour’s political leadership in parliament would all have a way to recommend what needed to be debated at NPF and annual conference. NPF could develop mechanisms for scrutiny of policy ideas, perhaps hearing oral evidence from community figures, NGOs, business and academia. To aid the move away from very broad, generalist policy input, Labour must seek to rebuild and empower the range of socialist societies that are structured around specific policy areas and the expertise of members in health, education, the environment and so on. Currently of varied strength and activism, these groups by their nature would be ideally placed to reach out into the wider world and broaden input. Adapting the policy-making process in such a way as this, which would enhance NPF reps ability to gather member input, should help us collectively produce and adopt policy that hasn’t left behind its values, and which can benefit from the input of experts, be proven to capture public imagination and broaden the base of people interested in engaging with Labour, in and out of government.
Our Experience The Young Fabians is not the Labour Party – aside from scale, we have significant differences in our constitution. Nevertheless, there may be some good practice to borrow. During the meeting with members of the Young Labour National Committee, Peter Hain asked Adrian Prandle, Young Fabian Chair, to outline in this submission how the Young Fabians’ policy development process has worked. We have recently launched our latest member-led policy process, now a regular annual fixture in the Young Fabian calendar. The last process completed in 2010 involved four Policy Development Groups (PDGs) looking at specific areas of policy. The Young Fabians executive committee selected from within the membership a suitable chair for each group with expertise in the given area and members signed up in vast numbers to take part. Though speakers stimulated discussion and added expertise and research, the focus of meetings was the development of new policy ideas amongst ordinary members.
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Members were encouraged to be a part of the process from start to finish, but were also welcome to dip in and out as they wish. All four PDGs included online meetings3 – with one running entirely online – so as to facilitate nationwide discussion and break the barriers of participation that Westminster-centred organisations face. Reports were published online regularly, as well as online meetings being archived for anyone to review at a later date, whether they’d participated on the day or not. The outcome was clear to members as chairs geared up to contribute to a new pamphlet and one group experimented with wiki-policy-making at the end of the process, in which a draft structure was placed online for all members to edit, comment, make additions to arguments, and add evidence. Though this is not risk free, and was used by a limited number of members, it is worthy of further exploration.4 Ultimately, the process was designed to involve members at any and every stage – so the organisation, and wider movement, could benefit from the collective strength of individuals.
A national party Great political movements and leaders challenge and change consensus. The British electoral system requires canny targeting of constituencies for general election campaigning; this remains a fact. It is not a barrier, however, to building Labour’s strength in every constituency around the country. We have party members everywhere and so should be able to facilitate engaging activity everywhere. Electoral targeting should not be an excuse for us letting CLPs become inactive, failing to recruit new young members, and not finding out what voters’ needs and wants actually are. The challenge of limited resources can be overcome with smart ideas and different methods. Bold leadership would see the adoption of a ’50 state strategy’ for Britain’s (soon-to-be) 600 constituencies. The more people who are normally left out that we are able to engage over the next three years, the more places we can bring into play and the more people we have likely to phonebank the marginals for the general election and to travel to marginals for the doorstep campaign. Though he didn’t go quite this far, John Denham – in his latest speech on the theme of ‘southern discomfort’ suggested that the key to rebuilding Labour in the south was going beyond a focus on winnable seats to developing a much wider dialogue with the public and demonstrating regional strength, commitment and seriousness. But this goes for rural areas in the north too. We need to be ambitious and positive again about what we might achieve; and we must genuinely be a national party. After spending its time in government trying to rebalance geographical economic disparities and provide opportunity for all, it is perverse that Labour’s structures seem to have been immune from such equality and decentralisation. The reality in our party today is that the best way to ‘get on’ in politics if you live outside of London, is by moving there. We should be deeply uncomfortable with this and must recognise the problems of uniformity that result. We should be a party that genuinely values the experience, diversity and experience members and activists drawn from across the UK can bring. We should celebrate young MPs within our party, and there is nothing wrong with PPCs whose occupational background is in politics. But we must understand all of the consequences of the increase over the last twenty years of this demographic and question whether there is a culture within the Labour Party that needs addressing. Though no individual candidate is at fault, and though in most cases selections are being made locally, the large of number of young candidates who have only ever worked in and around Westminster reinforces the idea that the only way to successfully stand for election is by working within the Westminster bubble. In lacking clear and transparent routes to
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Using free (and very easy to use) technology provided by http://www.coveritlive.com/ We used PB Works’ wiki facility: http://pbworks.com/?utm_campaign=wiki-link
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getting involved in the party at all levels, we discourage the broadest possible range of bright, able and dedicated people.
Evolving the way we campaign The Party must find a middle ground between the two views that say ‘copy everything they do in America’ and ‘we can’t do it: Britain’s completely different, and we have no money’. We face cultural, political and legal differences as well as financial barriers – but this doesn’t by any means block out all the good practice, and it would be foolish to write off widespread use of ideas that are being shown to work in our country. What Young Fabians saw in Ohio in 2008 was an inherent belief in the power of people and relationship building, coupled with trust in volunteers that led to genuine empowerment. It is a mistake to think that these ideas belong to a label or faction within the Labour Party. It is a simple culture not dissimilar from the broad left movement when at its best at various points in the last couple of centuries.
It’s not just Edgbaston it can work in Community organising, in particular as utilised by the Obama campaign in 2008, offers the best model of accountability, devolution and transparency available to us, and we know it can work here in the UK. In the ‘safe’ Tory council seat of Broadheath in Trafford council, Sam Bacon (Young Fabian Regions Officer) ran a pilot for the 2011 local elections to see if Obama style community organising and campaign organisation could be effective in ward-level local communities. The key principle would be to genuinely seek to empower and engage our supporters, activists and volunteers. It would not be enough to tell the volunteers what was wanted of them, but to understand what they wanted from the Labour campaign and how those things could be provided. In short, the campaign sought to provide opportunities to train, develop and build supporters into volunteers and volunteers into activists. An activist in this campaign was not simply someone who would do voter ID and leafleting, but for those with the right skills, values, time and desire, there were a range of opportunities offered to help do the core work of the campaign and lighten the burden at the centre. For example, having first spoken with all of the volunteers and members in the area to perform a ‘skills audit’, and knowing that pictures were needed, a volunteer who had expressed some skill with photography was approached. He was encouraged to play as active a part of the campaign as he could, and due to his media skills, experience and desire to be involved that was carefully fostered and developed by the campaign and he became the head of communications; a party member who had never before volunteered for a campaign because he had simply not been asked. As part of the wider strategy in the campaign, a transparent and consistent way in which anyone coming to the campaign could train and develop and move into a role of real influence was proactively set out. So for the seven young graduates working as part of the central campaign team, the accountability, responsibility and gradual devolution of authority given to them meant that they could gain the skills and experience within the party that they were looking for, and without having to move to London to get them. This type of decentralisation works – the campaign started with two volunteers and, after being an unworked ward for a significant period of time, no contacts. In just three months, an active campaign team of around twelve people had been built, with an active volunteer list of around Young Fabians
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70. We increased our vote by 110% and achieved a 12% swing from the Conservatives towards Labour. More than that, the volunteers at the centre of Labour’s campaign team that had the desire and skill to take responsibility and authority for various aspects of the campaign have developed even further and are now being put in place as the campaign managers for the next local elections. The guiding thought behind the Broadheath campaign? ‘If the world’s best graphic designer walks into our office, never again must we be the party that asks them to simply deliver leaflets – we ask them to design them.’ Offering volunteers a real chance to get involved and make a difference, we can actually engage and enthuse those that otherwise would not be interested. The majority of the 70 volunteers were non-regular or new volunteers to the party, but almost all volunteered more than once. It is time consuming and not always easy, but campaigning based around volunteers skills, interests and reasons for being part of the campaign do lead to better campaigns, more engaged volunteers and, in the long term, less workload at the centre – not to mention better outcomes for citizens.
Young Fabians and Young Labour Owing to the affiliated status of our ‘parent’ organisations, the Chair of the Young Fabians sits exofficio on the Young Labour National Committee. This is good practice and, as it benefits both organisations, should continue. We would like to take this opportunity to endorse the Young Labour submission to the Refounding Labour consultation and hope that the Party will do all it can to help Young Labour, through its national committee, become the high-functioning, exciting, empowering and effective organisation it strives to be.
Conclusion onclusion Member involvement, coupled with a commitment to reaching out beyond those paying their subs, is at the heart of the ideas we have set out for making Labour an exciting home for those on the left. The Young Fabians remains committed to supporting reform of the Labour Party to enhance the chance of returning to government to deliver a better life for all people, the length and breadth of Britain – and beyond. This response does not have all the answers but we believe firmly that just a little innovation, combined with the best practice from campaigning and/or membership organistions inside and outside of the movement, can achieve this goal. We hope there will be further opportunities to influence necessary reform, and we are very happy, where useful, to share and explain in more detail some of the successes of our organisation in recent years. Whilst the job of coordinating from the centre the organic growth and development of the organisation is unenviable, the movement can succeed at this enormous task – we can and must do it together. Good luck with the next stage!
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About the authors Adrian Prandle is Chair of the Young Fabians and editor of The New Generation, the result of the Young Fabians’ 2010 policy development group process he coordinated. He co-led the 80-strong delegation to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in the swing state of Ohio. Sam Bacon perhaps epitomises the journey a Young Fabian can go on, from being a member, to attending a few events, to organising YF activity himself in his local area, through to joining the executive committee as our Regions Officer. In 2011 he was asked to become organiser for a campaigning pilot in Broadheath ward in Trafford, where in three months he built a volunteer list of 70 from scratch and achieved a 12% swing from Conservative to Labour. Anna-Joy Rickard, Daniel Bamford and Brian Duggan sit on the Young Fabian Executive Committee as Membership Officer, Networks Officer and Policy Officer respectively.
Acknowledgements Thanks are owed to Young Fabian members for participating in, and helping the executive committee hone, the range of activities referenced here. Particular thanks are due to those members active in the Transforming our Party PDG in 2010 who, after an initial therapeutic session sharing bad experiences of being active in the Labour Party, were full of positive ideas. And also to those who wrote up their findings from the Obama delegation in 2008.5 Special thanks to Nirmalee Wanduragala, co-leader of that delegation, and to Jessica Studdert who chaired the special project group, Transforming our Party.
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These contributions are downloadable from http://www.youngfabians.org.uk/content/view/191/5/.
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