Local Political Parties / Why I Joined - 12 comments

Andrew Brown covers the Joseph Rowntree Trust's dispiriting report on the state of Local Constituency Parties across Great Britain (I have already read one post on this but can't remember where it was - apologies if that blogger feels snubbed), and asks his readers why - if they happen to be a member of a political party - they joined, and otherwise, what might tempt them to join.

Well I'm going to steal his idea and ask the question here too (though you can also follow the comments there).

I'd like to hear your stories - whether you're a Labour member or a member of a rival party, or not a member at all. Please avoid the temptation to evangelise, if at all possible.

Here's Andrew's:

I came from a family who talked a lot of politics and the extension of talking about it to trying to do something about it wasn’t that far a step. I joined my party because I wanted to change the world and recognised that doing that on my own was going to be difficult. I joined because I hated many of the things that the Conservative Government were doing. I became active because I didn’t consider that there was an alternative, and I stayed active because of the relationships that developed and the experiences I had. I put myself forward for election because someone asked me to.

And here's mine: well, I grew up in a family (my family, specifically) of liberal, Guardian-reading, Conservative teachers (I wonder if such a thing now exists). I can't remember any political discussion until I was about 13 (1989/1990), and it was about this time that I initiated a rather embarrassing conversation about the Government's apparently miraculous impact on unemployment, which had been falling seemingly for ever (there are a few problems with this analysis). I suspect I followed this with, "How can people possibly criticise Mrs. Thatcher?", and this - together with my selfish social attitudes - must surely have given any independent adjudicator the distinct impression I had been bounced on my head at an early age.

The 1989-1990 (?) Ambulance Strike, about which this is about the best account I can find in the time I have) is about the first politicising event I can recall that pushed me away from the Tories, albeit with the assistance of a rare left-wing schoolfriend. More important, however, was that I somehow managed to turn away from an attitude to the Labour Party that seemed to be universal within my social group: schoolboy mockery of Labour's personnel - probably influenced by Spitting Image - their Scottishness, their Welshness, and their earnest commitment to policies that seemed alien to someone of that age. Though committed enough a supporter to be devastated by the wretched John Major's victory in 1992, and to be depressed by the pervasive Conservatism of my peers (interestingly, the seat in question now exhibits a 16.8% Labour majority), prevarication meant I didn't join Labour until the middle of 1993.

I've remained in the party ever since, being more-or-less content with the rights that gives me, and fairly firm in my conviction that only in truly exceptional times have Labour policies and Labour personnel - taken as a whole - not been ethically and practically superior to those of the Conservatives. I can't honestly say I have a good record when it comes to being "right" on various political issues, having opposed the toppling of Saddam in Iraq for some absolutely lousy reasons, and having nearly resigned my membership in that same year over an issue that ought to have earned my permanent expulsion from intelligent society. But, you live and learn, and the embarrassing letters I could have sent - such as the castigation of the late John Smith for ending Labour's commitment to nationalisation in early 1994 - always remained on the computer.

I've been "active" at election time (especially in 2005), though probably never felt sufficiently at ease within a CLP to be considered "up and coming", and groomed for power by some local Svengali. Though I started the application process for being a 2007 Councillor I pulled out soon after, my vision of what the task - let alone the responsibility, and the potential of the role - entailed being totally incompatible with a 9-5 job, let alone a 7-7 commute. My lack of NUS background also disinclined me to take on constituency roles that seemed to offer fancy job titles for roles that offer neither rights, responsibilities, nor expectations (though there have been exceptions). It's partly for these same reasons that I'm suspicious of those who - in my view - obsess about party rules and the need to give these obscure bodies the "democratic" right to recall Councillors or MPs who have been elected - yes, with the help of those members - but by 1,000 or 20,000 voters who have nothing at all to do with them, and who have their own needs. Perhaps "obscure bodies" is unfair - most of this paragraph is evidence of the lack of community grounding, and lack of competition, to be seen when local politics is weak.

I'm not at all sure I haven't evangelised, but I'll call a halt nonetheless (yawn).

Leave a comment with your own story - however long - or thoughts.