It is amazing how long-lived is the fantasy that the "major" political parties are still mass membership organisations, and are also still largely financed by small-scale local fundraising. In reality, they are kept going by gigantic subventions from the State and the supper-rich, and most of their tiny remaining memberships is made up of the starstruck elderly who will swoon over Liam Byrne's tea boy or Jeremy Hunt's typist. If there is any local involvement at all in candidate selection, that is. Very often, there is none. In David Miliband's constituency, there is no longer even any local involvement in the selection of candidates for the local council; his London office does the lot.
So, by no means only in order to annoy the potential beneficiaries of this sorry state of affairs, although there is certainly that: in the course of each Parliament, each party should submit to a binding ballot of the whole constituency electorate its locally, internally determined shortlist of two for Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, just as each should submit to a binding ballot of the whole constituency electorate its internally determined shortlist of two for Leader. Many a stalwart of the Council or of other aspects of the local Big Society (trade unions, co-operatives, and so on) would then beat many a Westminster Village boy or his girlfriend. And our Parliament would be infinitely better for those victories.
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As of course you know, the title of this post was also the title of a history of the Labour party by those then rising stars, Bill Rodgers and Bernard Donoughue. The Gang of Four member you had most in common with politically and the sort of Labour stayer you had most in common politically. Are you the man to reuinte those two wings after electoral reform? I hope so.
ReplyDeleteSteady on, they are both still alive, and indeed active in Parliament.
ReplyDeleteLord Donoughue is still active in that part of Parliament from which you can still tell The Week In Westminster, both that if the media keep telling MPs that they are a lowlife then they will start to behave like lowlife, and that tougher sentencing for MPs than for anyone else is fundamentally incompatible with the principle of equality before the law. The part of Parliament where you can be on the Board of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
And Lord Rodgers (not always right, but nevertheless underrated), has probably returned to his Gaitskellite roots as the EU has been more and more exposed for its disregard of parliamentary procedure, for its lack of transparency, and for the platform that it gives to antidemocratic extremism. He was an opponent of CND when there was a Cold War on, but that need not make him a supporter of Trident today.
I find the ‘Blue Labour’ approach which people like Cruddas and Glasman are developing very promising. In fact the label ‘Blue Labour’ is deceptive because it implies simply a new strategy to conquer the centre ground ; whereas, it is a deepening of the idea of socialism beyond simply promoting a powerful, redistributive state, to a consideration of how the ineluctably social nature of our humanity can be nourished for the good of us all. That means, for Labour, reconnecting with community and participation, with its own traditional supporters, and integrating a much profounder understanding of the role of culture and ethics to resist what Engels called, “the dissolution of mankind into monads”. But it also means that this analysis cannot be reduced to vague good intentions, that Labour needs to regain its old fighting spirit to take on the enormously powerful vested interests who profit from the status quo. (If New Labour did anything good, it at least showed that fudge in this area doesn’t work.) If it is nourished by men and women of moral and intellectual courage, it is now possible, after the 'neoliberal era', for Labour to dare again a radical critique of society (which, it has to be said, would represent a rather dramatic change).
ReplyDeleteLiam Byrne never had a tea boy. He had a coffee boy.
ReplyDeleteFascinating idea. What is your planned sanction for those who don't participate?
ReplyDeleteRobert Pelik, and this would be one of the many means of bringing that about.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, quite so. I stand corrected.
Fonz, I wouldn't expect anyone to vote for any party which did not do this, once one of them had started the ball rolling. However, there could also be provision to waive the requirement for nomination by five per cent of registered voters, which ought itself to replace the deposit system.
Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant for voters who don't participate. I would estimate that a top end, you'd have a turnout roughly approaching a parish council at most - so c.20%. Maybe less.
ReplyDeleteWhat will you do to those who won't vote?
Nothing. As now. You are perfectly entitled not to vote.
ReplyDeleteBut I don't accept your premise. In some places, the turnout to select a dominant local party's candidate would approach or even exceed that at the election itself. In very marginal seats, the turnout in the ballots for the seriously contending parties would also be comparable to that at the election.
I thought you said this was binding?
ReplyDeleteSorry, actually reading it back I see the point you're making - the result, of whatever turnout, is binding on that party. My apologies.
ReplyDeleteJust to add, if I may, that even a turnout of around twenty per cent of the electorate would be immensely more people than are presently involved in choosing parliamentary candidates.
ReplyDelete