Conference – a view from outside Liverpool

The 2011 Party Conference season is giving me déjà vu.

Watching Labour from outside Liverpool, through the prism of media, blog and twitter coverage – to be fair – there was a lot to be happy about.

Keynote speeches received a lot of airtime and the key message punched through, particularly Balls on fiscal discipline (which coincided nicely with the Fabian publication “The Credibility Deficit”), Cooper on police bravery and reform, and Ed Miliband on ‘I’m my own man’.

The fight against the (perception at least) of a lurch to the left is going well. Ed M is speaking more passionately and more confidently. I believe he’s having speech training. That was a good idea, which is paying off. Ken also made some noise, that punched through to national media, on transport fares. And he dovetailed nicely with a simultaneous SMS campaign.

Ed’s main message, around ethics in markets and not-business as usual, needs a bit more work to stick in the minds of the man on the Clapham omnibus. But I think it could resonate well. I’d caution though, that just “being against business as usual” only works when you explain quite a bit of context.

On the down side, there were a lot of blogs and tweets pointing to the party being in lemming mode. There is a body of opinion that is frustrated by a sense that we know we have an unelectable leader and we are not landing the blows against the coalition, but that we are happy to stick our heads in the sand and keep congratulating ourselves. From outside of Liverpool, I picked up quite a bit of this sentiment.

But what do I mean by déjà vu?

It was the summer and autumn of 2008 when the credit crunch turbulence escalated into a full-blown financial and economic crisis. It came to a head around the time of the Party Conference season. In 2011, the Labour leadership speeches were ok. There were no big fails. But the Labour conference seemed slightly blind to the fact that the global economy is standing on a knife edge, in a similar position to where we were in the Autumn of 2008. Failure to reach a solution to the eurocrisis will affect all our lives in a very bad way for a long time to come. It will be a source of economic malaise and deprivation and, who knows, potentially a source of conflict.

In 2008, Cameron – in opposition – grasped the severity of the 2008 financial crisis and ripped up all the main speeches (and conference agenda) and refocused on what was happening in the economy. That showed a bit of vision.

Unfortunately, Labour didn’t do the same in 2011. Perhaps our heads are a little too far in the sand.

Nick Maxwell is Partnerships Officer for the Young Fabians.

What Labour can learn from Liverpool

In this member post, Young Fabian member Andrew Shearwood reflects on his first Labour Party Conference, currently taking place in his home-town of Liverpool.

There a few words that can really describe the great feeling of attending your first party conference, particularly when the event is being hosted in your own city. Even without going into the main hall (alas my own exhibitor ticket doesn’t get me access), the sheer number of different fringe events has been incredible. And seeing the surprised looks when people realise what Liverpool is actually like has been quite a highlight.

On the first day of conference I decided to catch up with some members from around the country to show them around the city. Their exclamations of “it’s like Berlin but with more classical buildings” took even me by surprise: it’s clear that the city has made an incredible impression on visitors to conference.

Perhaps what is so surprising is that it has taken so long to finally bring the Labour Party Conference to Liverpool (it is the first since 1925). This was a talking point for local MP, Louise Ellman, at a fringe meeting that I helped arrange at a local landmark microbrewery –  “The Baltic Fleet” (much cheaper than the Albert Dock for those of you who haven’t tried). In a speech to rally the mostly local crowd, she described how just a few years ago if you suggested bring conference to the city, the organisers would simply smile and then list an abundance of reasons as to why it wouldn’t be possible, and how in such a short space of time the city has been able to turn that around.

At a time when the Labour Party is facing an incredible dilemma in creating policies that can bring the party back into power in the face of years of austerity and economic woes, it is exceptionally appropriate to be in a city that has more experience in these areas than any other.

In the city the local Labour Party managed to win back the council at the very height of “Clegg-Mania”. Since taking back control, and in the face of the highest level of cuts of any council in the country, the local party has still been able to introduce a programme of investing millions into schools that could have been so easily left behind by the axing of Building Schools for the Future.

Such a re-energised local party should form a cornerstone of how the national Labour Party can succeed in trying times, and it is these trying times that truly show what the party is made of.

Andrew Shearwood is a member of the Young Fabians.

Inside conference

Liverpool is lovely. The Labour Party should be planning another conference in Liverpool again, very soon. Everywhere people have been talking more about how welcoming, friendly and revitalising the city has been. It has even provided ample opportunities for delegates and members to escape politics for a little cultural respite.

That’s not to say that the mood amongst the crowd isn’t febrile. We’re only half way through this year’s conference but it is clear that people are chomping the bit to discuss and debate the issues. This afternoon’s speech from Ed Miliband therefore has a high conference threshold to reach.

The pre-briefing points to a leader’s speech of big themes and populist rhetoric, which should play fairly well to the TV masses. But Miliband will no doubt find a more challenging audience in the conference hall.

Just take the debate at this morning’s Young Fabian fringe. Politicians should not discount the appetite for discussing our “squeezed youth” agenda and the challenges facing the next generation, it is obviously huge when an 8am fringe leads to an almost full room.

And, importantly, people are not content with just listening, they want proper dialogue.

I’m not sure what Andy Slaughter or John Woodcock were expecting but they were soon faced with a full on and vibrant debate covering the full gamut of issues our Next Generation policy development group has been looking at.

What is clear is that Labour’s policy development process needs to be geared towards continual engagement with people on these issues, consciously reassessing whether their thinking answers the concerns and hopes of the people we hope policies will affect. As John Woodcock put it, moving beyond “cut and paste policy”.

Maybe that’s not where the leadership is just now but there’s a feeling they need to show they are on that journey. Despite the need for the big picture, which Miliband’s senior advisor Lord Wood made a cogent argument for at our Institute for Government event before conference, we know that the public also wants to be convinced that we can deliver. They also want to see a credible route for the high aspirations we are espousing. On everything – from our response to the Big Society, our ideas about mobilising communities and creating a living, breathing industrial base that can lead us to growth – people want to know how we might get there and what it will mean for them in practice.

That points to more incrementalist policies in some areas and more action from Labour-led local government.

Finally there is a sense that Government cannot do it all; while state-led policy is a necessity, the state needs to find its groove as a mobilising force for business, communities and ordinary people want to lead better lives for themselves and their families.

Vincenzo Rampulla is Officer without Portfolio for the Young Fabians.

Labour Party Conference predictions

This is the first “proper” conference since the Labour Party’s General Election defeat of 2010, given the 2010 conference was dedicated to the results of the Labour Leadership election, and the subsequent shock win of Ed Miliband.

Aside from the almost certain grumbles about the conference venue – no grand old conference hotel in the secure zone for politicians and the media to hobnob – this year’s conference is likely to be almost entirely dominated by conversations on the internal structures of the Labour Party itself.

The Refounding Labour process, spearheaded by Peter Hain, has proposed  various measures with the aim of reconnecting the Labour Party with the public, and making it more focused on community activism.

Firstly, the relatively needless process of having Conference rubber-stamp the change from an elected Shadow Cabinet to one which is solely nominated by the Leader, Ed Miliband. In truth this change should be a matter for the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) given it is simply a change in the standing orders. However, since it was the Refounding Labour process that proposed it, it will go onto the conference floor for discussion. As a result of this expect to hear lots of chatter about which of the current incumbents wags think will be for the chop – and of course the much-mooted (hoped-for?) return of the ‘Prince Over The Water’ figure, David Miliband.

Secondly, the far more interesting proposal to add a new section to the Affiliates section of the electoral voting college of the Labour Party. So alongside the Trades Unions and the Socialist Societies such as the Fabian Society and others, registered supporters of the Labour Party will be invited to vote for leaders in the future. One can only assume that Ed Miliband won’t be expecting this to be used for a long time yet…

Further changes in this respect include restricting members and others to a maximum of one vote in a maximum of two sections of the electoral college. One for psephological  wonks really. The Trades Unions reaction to this has been relatively muted – they are presumably relieved that this is a relatively minor adjustment to their power in the party structures.

On the policy front, Shadow Ministers will set out in their keynotes a broad-brush approach to their policy portfolios, giving little specific detail but setting out a direction of travel. After the plethora of policy reviews (some say in the high 20s, others have counted over 70), members will want to see that some hard thinking has been done on issues such as health and social security – and of course on economic growth.

Names to watch on the fringe? My money is on strong performances from John Woodcock MP, Stella Creasy MP and Kate Green MP. Encounters to look out for? Well, I wouldn’t like to be stuck in the lift should Ed Balls and Alistair Darling meet unexpectedly!

Steve Race is Equalities Officer for the Young Fabians.

Labour Women’s Conference – what women want

The Labour Women’s Conference in Liverpool today is its own justification. Numerous people over the past few weeks, within the opposition and media, and disappointingly within the Labour Party itself, have queried the need for a separate women’s event. If women want to be mainstreamed, isn’t the best way to do that to make their views heard within the framework of the mainstream party conference?

But the discussions today have amply demonstrated the need for a dedicated space for women in the Labour movement to discuss the serious issues facing us in Britain today. This is more necessary than ever during the current cuts, with women suffering disproportionately as both public service users and as public sector workers.

Yvette Cooper in her rousing keynote speech, and Fiona Mctaggart and others in the subsequent panels, highlighted just how badly women are doing under the Coalition government, and how the gains made through the hard work of women in the Labour movement over the past 60 years are being threatened and undone across the board.

As Angela Eagle MP put it “this government has a problem with women.” Well, we have a problem with this government.

Hard-won rights and services are being undone by a government that has just four women in its Cabinet, and that – as a recent leaked memo revealed – canvassed women’s opinions not through serious consultation and representation but by rounding up the few women in Number 10 for a brainstorm of ‘what women want’.

If we’d been asked we could have easily told the Coalition.

What women want is the ability to work and raise a family, or to do just one of these, without being vilified or disadvantaged.  What women want is the right not to be raped, stalked or harassed at work and to be able to prosecute successfully if they are. What women want is fair representation in public life.

And what we need is the support and encouragement of the Party- and the right to self-organise in women forums and yes, at Labour Women Conferences – until such a time as what we want becomes a reality.

Claire Leigh is Treasurer of the Young Fabians

Labour and the World: The Rational and the Romantic

Yesterday evening the Young Fabians hosted a round table as part of our Labour in the World Policy Commissions with Labour MEP for London Mary Honeyball. The meeting got a little stuck on the tactics of how Labour talks about Europe, rather than the political direction for Europe. Specifically, the question discussed was: how do pro Europeans make the case for EU membership in a net contributing EU member state?

There seems to be two approaches: the rational and the romantic.

Of the large net contributors to the EU budget, the French and Germans seem to fall on the romantic side, they hold a deep routed historical and ideological commitment to the European project following the aftermath of WW2. However the significant CAP and Structural Funds they share between them bend towards the rational. The Italians have the EU to thank for ridding them of the Lira, another rational argument. But what has Britain got to shout about? And will it be rational facts or romantic ideals that will work to make case for EU membership in any potential future vote on the matter?

During our period in government, departments successively made the case for Britain’s EU membership rationally and dispassionately, dealing with hard-headed facts. We spoke about trade, jobs, market access and a single set of market rules all meaning British companies and jobs are better off with Britain in, even if we pay more to the budget than we get back in hand outs (the rebate included). So our position in effect was (and largely still is) this: we pay more in, but without it, we’d be poorer. So in effect, EU membership is an indirect fiscal benefit to the Treasury and thus UK taxpayers.

So far so rational, but it’s not exactly going to send people rushing to the polling station to cast a yes in any prospective future referenda. So what is?

Do we need instead need to break the issue down to the emotive and evocative, using stories and images backed up by hard-headed facts?

The image that Europe, a continent that had been in conflict for centuries, has been at peace for over half a century is strong but it doesn’t seem as relevant today as in the last century.  But twin that with the rational facts of our inter-dependent trade and we might just have a script.

So to tell a story evocatively, as well as dealing in rational facts, Labour should weave a narrative of Britain needing to stand on the world stage with others and not alone, needing to draw on the resources of others to forge a way forward, needing to help those in their greatest need and a Britain that looks outward not inward and to quote a phrase, looking forward not back.

Brian Duggan is Young Fabian Policy Officer.

You can find out more about the 2011 Young Fabian Policy Commissions by clicking here.

Our submission to Peter Hain’s Refounding Labour consultation – let us know your thoughts

As Labour’s national executive committee is all set to propose a path forward for reform of the Party, and with the announcement of Iain McNicol as Labour’s new general secretary, the Young Fabians today publish our submission to Peter Hain’s consultation on Labour Party reform.

Click here to read the submission.

The Young Fabian submission offers ideas on:

• New styles of campaigning and organisation
• Becoming a true national party
• Improving Labour’s policy-making process
• Innovations in YF member-led policy development
• Membership growth – and utilising Labour’s affiliates, like the Fabian Society
• Developing the highest quality CLPs

Young Fabians have been working on these issues for three years since our delegation to Ohio to campaign for Barack Obama. We published our ‘lessons learnt’ from the ground campaign shortly after our return. Last year we ran a member-led special project group called ‘Transforming our Party’, which built upon young people’s experiences with the Labour Party to develop ideas to revolutionise the way Labour functions.

You can read more about all this work here.

We wish Labour’s NEC well. But this is a responsibility for everyone with a stake in Labour’s – and the country’s future – from parliamentary leadership to brand new Young Fabian members. It is not an easy task, and will require both patience and a willingness to experiment. I for one believe we can do this.

Please let us know your thoughts on our submission, and the consultation more generally by leaving a comment below.

Some questions for “Next Generation Labour”

Next Generation Labour launched today, founded by several former Compass Youth Committee members. I can’t speak for the rest of the Young Fabian Executive, but to my mind there is plenty of space on the left for a plurality of ideas, perspectives, and youth organisations.* To that extent, the launch should be welcomed.

But reading their founding statement, I was left with some questions which I think Next Generation Labour’s founders should take seriously.

The founding statement says:

“…for so many of our generation, Labour became a party of the establishment. It failed to ensure growth was shared fairly enough – whilst the very wealthiest got ever richer; it raised tuition fees, pursued war, attacked civil liberties and let immigration be demonised.

To win, Labour must be willing to articulate a modern left politics and reconnect with the coalition of supporters it lost and the vast majority opposed to the Tories’ reactionary agenda.”

I’m not sure I fully agree.

If the electorate were really concerned about the ‘problems’ of Labour in government – rich getting richer, rises in tuition fees, a government pursuing war, letting immigration be demonised – then why did the Tories win a majority of the votes, and the chance to form a Coalition government who have gone on to do exactly those things?

Will Labour win the next general election solely by appealing to those opposed to the Tories? This seems unlikely to me – any general election victory will have to be built on winning over some people who supported the Conservatives at the last election. Surely these form part of the “coalition of supporters [Labour] lost”, too?

Moreover, are there enough people opposed to the Conservatives who will vote for a change in government at the next election? How might Coalition politics affect that?

Isn’t being seen as the establishment inevitable if you become a party of government? Aren’t constraints the inevitable trade-off in return for the ability to effect change as a governing party?

Is this founding statement therefore just an opposition’s charter?

My main concern is that the genuine desire on the left to “articulate a modern left politics” – shared by more than just “Next Generation Labour”, incidentally – could be the exact opposite of “reconnecting with the coalition of supporters [Labour] lost”.

Yes, Labour needs principles on which to hang any policies it puts forward at the next election (and in the intervening period). But those principles need to recognise the cold electoral facts the party faces.

Hoping that principle alone carries Ed Miliband through the door at Number 10 in four years time is wishful thinking. Establishing a new vision for the left on ground unappealing the broader electorate will likely only result in failure, however noble that vision is to the left.

It’s probably a dangerous game to quote Tony Blair, but seeing as he is the only Labour leader to have won a general election in the last 30 years, I’ll take my chances. Blair once said: “Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile.”

That, in essence, sums up the challenge Next Generation Labour – and the rest of us – face in the coming months and years: balancing our core beliefs and principles against the shifting sands of public opinion.

Alex Baker is Secretary of the Young Fabians.

*Our own Caroline Alabi is part of the founding group of Next Generation Labour.

Introducing our 2011 Policy Commissions

The Young Fabians will soon be launching four Policy Commissions. Our Policy Commissions form the backbone of our policy work and since their inception they have increasingly become strong access points for our members into the policy making process of the Labour Party.

This year we launch the Commissions at a crucial time for Labour. With a thorough examination of party policy under the stewardship of Liam Byrne MP, there is a timely opportunity for our members to take a firm grasp of the chance to offer Labour our ideas on the party’s policy renewal. The process we are undertaking will be a vehicle for our members to develop their ideas and test their suggestions which we will offer into Liam’s Fresh Ideas policy review.

Over the coming months, four Young Fabian members will lead informed debates and discussions, open to all Labour supporters which will result in our submission to Labour’s Policy Review and a Young Fabian Pamphlet setting out our ideas for Labour’s future policy offer.

Our four commissions will look at:

1. Renewing and Reforming Our Economy – Maneesh Sharma and Graeme Henderson

The task of this group will be to investigate the path Labour should take to build a more sustainably prosperous economic settlement for Britain. It will investigate the need for an active industrial strategy, the fairness divide in our economy, job creation and productivity. It also will look towards opportunities in the green economy and in new and emerging markets as well as looking to incentives for business to break out of the ‘low pay low skill’ cycle.

2. Building Stronger Communities - Richard Angell and Anas Sarwar MP

This group will look at the strength and resilience of British community life in the modern world. It will investigate how families across the country are working harder for longer for less. The consequence of this for family life and community activism will be explored. It will also look at the challenge of how communities are empowered into the political process so that citizens become stakeholders in their communities and in national life.

3. Securing the Future of the Next Generation – Joani Reid

Ed Miliband has stated that “the British Promise, that the next generation would always do better than the last, is now under threat like never before.” The key challenge of this Commission will be to investigate how young Britain is coping with the consequences of government fiscal retrenchment. Facing debt, a difficult labour market and a challenging housing market, the next generation of Britain is under huge pressure. This commission will look at how Labour should respond to the challenges facing the next generation.

4. Labour and the World – Debbie Moss

Foreign affairs is at transformative moment and this group will explore Labour’s role in the World. It will span aid policy in a time of austerity, to security in the context of defence cuts and the criteria for military intervention in fragile states and the balance between domestic security and external stability. Labour in the World will look at Britain’s relationships to other states and institutions and how we form an ethical foreign policy and learn lessons from past conflicts.

Young Fabian members have much to offer these four big policy areas.

Please sign up to join our Policy Commissions and join in the debate about Labour’s future policy offer.

Together we look forward to offering the Labour Party a series of new, fresh and robust ideas.

Brian Duggan is Young Fabian Policy Officer.

The ‘Interest Strand’: broadening and deepening Labour

Ahead of the Fabian Society’s Progressive Fightback conference tomorrow, Young Fabian member Bren Albiston argues that Labour can best renew through the development of ‘Interest Strands’.

As pointed out by Jessica Studdert in The New Generation policy pamphlet, there needs to be a greater channelling of members expertise and interests, through the rejuvenation of socialist societies. However, when people join the Labour Party, as so many recently have, they are faced with a whole plethora of choices of which group to join, be it the Fabians, Compass etc.

This can prove quite confusing to many, and they end up not exploiting their passions and knowledge to the fullest extent they can. Furthermore, the thing that has come most to define the political expression of our generation has been the prevalence of the single issue group, at the expense of parties. This then leads me to suggest the creation of dedicated “Interest Strands”. These Strands would encompass different policy and interest areas, so as to channel the particular passions of new members and Labour supporters into constructive policy discussion, campaigning and other action, whilst broadening our support base.

Bringing Societies into the fold

Societies have played an incredibly important role in the party policy structure since its inception, however these supportive societies have become more and more disparate and isolated from each other. However what binds us together is that we want good policy and a Labour Government that delivers for everyone. Thus through a spirit of cooperation we can use the resources of the societies to harness expertise and deliver better outcomes.

This can be achieved through the Interest Strands, as different elements of the Labour movement can come together and work on specific policy areas, whilst including broader elements of the party than are usually involved. This has been demonstrated by SERA, the Labour Environment Campaign. By extending and furthering this model across more and more policy sectors we can generate the space for the Labour Party to grow and push forward the progressive agenda. But also we should extend the reach of this model, not only in its membership but also its action, giving it the ability to publicise and engage more widely with interested individuals on a national scale.

Refounding the Labour Coalition

There is a dire need to refound the Labour Party’s base, its ‘coalition of the willing’. Other Labour and Social Democratic parties across the globe have learnt the same lesson. It’s something that we have put off for too long and we are suffering because of it. If we look to our sister parties in New Zealand and Australia, why is it that they don’t have a Liberal Democrat Party to contend with? Because, rather simply, there is no room for them – the Labour Party has that base covered.

Whilst it is important not to lose sight of our roots, we must also make our party desirable and palatable to a much broader group of people from the centre to the left. And through the creation of dedicated Interest Strands with a degree of autonomy we can help that process along, by reaching out to those that do not currently have an identifiable home within our party.

I believe that our party needs to undertake this sort of reform of its policy and campaigning apparatus if we want to survive as the party of progress in this country. Through the creation of dedicated Interest Strands we can take advantage of the most popular form of political organisation, whilst retaining and furthering our party cohesion, and create a broader and deeper coalition of interests.