Labour: activism, democracy, MPs, and experts - 8 comments

I didn't get time to post this at the weekend, but hopefully people haven't got bored, or have moved their attention over to even weightier issues...

The deaths of Robin Cook and Mo Mowlam have focussed Paul Anderson's mind on the generation of Labour politicians from which both spring: their mortality, and who (if anyone) is following in their footsteps:

No fewer than 19 of the 23 members of the cabinet today are, like Cook and Mowlam, in their fifties, born in the first postwar decade, brought up on the welfare state and the Beatles and the Stones and that revolution stuff. Perhaps most importantly they were formed politically by the implosion of the Labour Party in the wake of the 1979 defeat by Margaret Thatcher.

And goes on to question whether the Party has.

... But parties need to rejuvenate themselves, and Labour is going to find it difficult to do it, just as the Tories have since the late 1980s. Most of the PLP is of the same generation as the cabinet. There has been little turnover of personnel in the past couple of elections, and there are few undiscovered stars. A handful of old-stager MPs might retire next time just as they did in 2001 and 2005. But the party in the country is hardly brimming with enthusiastic activists in their twenties and thirties:the replacements for retiring MPs are likely to be uninspiring apparatchiks, just as they have been for the past decade or more.

Spirit of 1976, writing for the Drink Soaked Trots, is less than optimistic:

I keep getting asked by my comrades what interests young people in politics... If I'm feeling honest, I generally reply that what they're interested in is what the Liberal Democrats have to say. Young, independent-minded, talented individuals just aren't getting involved with Labour politics ... My guess is that come the next election Labour's activist base will be pretty much gone, the progressive vote will be hopelessly split between a dried-up Labour Party and a resurgent Liberal Democrats, and the Tories will be back in power.

I'm sure everyone who's had a position within their local CLP is well-used to talking about membership strategies and "engaging" with young people. I can't say I've come across anything that's really worked. Thing is, what is there for activists to do? What are the pressing needs of local people and how are you helping them by sitting in a room above a pub, talking about £50 party fundraisers?

You can socialise; you can try to talk about politics (but generally not in meetings, only in the pub afterwards with a small subset of members closest to your age, and with the leadership having already left). You can pencil yourself in for the next meeting, seven Wednesday evenings hence, but without elections in the offing, what actually is there to do? It's not as if it's actually the responsibility of all Labour Party members to work for their community, doing good deeds, maintaining the social fabric, or 'spreading socialism'.

Perhaps this is an answer: encouraging Labour members to build their confidence and engage with real people by encouraging them to put Labour values into practice. Perhaps this could be done alongside local Labour councillors, where present. Not carefully thought-out, but perhaps it's more sustainable than trying to bribe young, politically-minded people to turn up to meetings with the promise of socials and quiz nights, then fail to deliver any actual politics.

I can't say party democracy is a big issue for me. Well, not as much as it "should be". At the last count I have, I think, no fewer than four positions within the local CLP (one or two of them jointly). Few people in the CLP probably realise this, and I suspect only a few would notice if I wasn't carrying them out satisfactorily. That's a recipe for disaster in any organisation. With enough positions for most people in a branch to have one, and with incumbency or apparent enthusiasm the only qualifications, respect for some posts can only be weakened. Under these conditions, local activism can merely seem a glamourous term for a self-established and self-perpetuating bureaucracy: a gravy-train of votes, committees, and conferences.

Perhaps it's unfair to add in the Fabians as yet another opportunity for Labour types to warm a few conference-room chairs without ever having to meet a radically different view, it's just that the people I've met who've associated with the Fabians seem to spend an inordinate amount of time at 'events'. It seems even 30-year-olds count as 'Young Fabians' : I'll let you draw your own conclusion from that.

Antonia has also picked up on these issues:

That relentless towing of the line at university, in the fetid atmosphere of national student politics, through a liberal-ish succesion of two or three jobs working for MPs / think tanks / trade unions / non-offensive NGOs / as a political advisor or SpAd, seems to produce identikit young politicos, with carefully-cultivated quirks and nice shoes, a regional accent, strong links to an area outside their current domicile of London, maybe a coke habit fastidiously concealed, far more interested in process than issues, and hung up on the proximity of power.

I have to say I've only limited experience of student politics: I wasn't involved with a student Labour Club until my fourth year of University (I had even gone so far as to opt-out of NUS), and my experience thereafter was not encouraging. I like to think there would have been more activity and more enthusiasm if I had got involved earlier (I mean, Labour wasn't in power then, so we must have been up for it). I'm sure I'd have acquired "contacts", but then Antonia's far from being alone in her view.

One thing I would say in defence of the young politico is that perhaps they're more likely than the horny-handed son of the soil to have a knowledge of politics, economics, and philosophy, these surely being essential for anyone who wants to understand contemporary issues and ideologies, as well as what works, what has failed, and what is practical. With this knowledge it should be easier (in principle) for an MP to be independent, question the party line, and go beyond what they read in the newspapers or see on TV.

This does matter. It does seem that the Left has lost the ability to talk about, for example, economics. Perhaps the UK's macroeconomic performance (i.e. headline unemployment figures; interest rates; inflation; etc.) has just been so much better than Labour people dared to dream that they can only latch onto what seems to be working. Quite what we'd do if we inherited a ruined economy from the Conservatives, I don't know. Even if there's no immediate possibility of radical change, it's important to at least know about economic theory so that, for example, contemporary issues like the flat tax can be discussed, and not left to conservatives.

Final twist: perhaps it's too much to hope that MPs can be on the one hand the great thinkers of the age, while on the other, committed workers on behalf of their constituents. In the latter case, I doubt that the 'ability' (in the cloying sense the media uses it) of an MP helps the constituent one iota. Perhaps a solution would be two elected chambers. One for thinkers, orators, and experts; the other, for problem-solvers, and community representatives. The former decides policy and strategy, the latter implementation, and the satisfaction of constituents' needs.

Anyway, I'm out of time, so that's it for now.