Monday, September 24, 2007

First day at Conference - Rule Change


Further to last post – there was a little bit of a “bun fight” at conference yesterday over the rule change contained in the “extending and renewing party democracy” proposal. This is all rather confusing and there has been some misleading information put out in the media claiming this means the “End of Labour Party Conference”.
The truth about the matter is a little more complex and subtle. Most people I have spoken to are concerned about the rule change. However, they accept that something had to change and things could not go on as before. For a number of years Conference has been passing motions which the Labour Government has made it very clear that they have no intention of implementing. This is actually nothing unique to “New Labour”. In fact Herbert Morrison (I think) defined Socialism as “What Labour Governments Do”. I have also always been a bit sceptical on the “Socialism via passing resolutions school of thought”.

The idea is that proposals can still be put forward to conference to be debated and voted upon. If passed, then this proposal will be sent to the National Policy Forum for further debate and discussion. The NPF will then report back to conference next year with proposals which will then be voted upon. The proposers and movers will be involved in this process.

I think that the trade unions see this as possibly a positive change. Instead of “empty victories” they will have a chance to continue to negotiate and influence policy. CLP’s and smaller affiliates often will not have such resources. However, extra resources in the whole NPF process have been promised. Wait and see. There is a “get out” clause. After two years it will all be reviewed and a vote will be taken on whether to go back to motions.

On a positive point, I think the idea of all CLP’s holding a policy day is excellent.

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