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PAUL WILENIUS: Labour Party activists in
Sheffield - they're out leafleting in the City Centre. But they've a
funny feeling someone's watching. They're carrying out party orders.
They're not easily put off, and they're still pushing the government's
message across to the voters. But sometimes they're uneasy, worried someone's
trying to control them. Is it Millbank? Party activists are getting tired
of being seen, but not heard.
SIR KEN JACKSON: The activists out there
do feel that their view is not being heard, that they're not being listened
to and when you try to change the role that they've got in terms of the
communication within the party, then obviously they feel sensitive that
that is not the way they want to go at this moment in time.
LORD SAWYER: You've got to allow people
to have their say which might not always agree with yours. I think this
thing about being a control freak, which runs and runs, and runs, and never
kind of goes away, needs to be addressed.
WILENIUS: The Labour Party was
formed 100 years ago, so its members and the unions could put their own
people into Parliament. But Labour's history has been characterised by
debate, division, and even open revolt against its own leadership. Tony
Blair has acted to prevent such clashes, but some fear he will pay a political
price for imposing such strict centralised controls on the party.
It's this control from the centre which is upsetting so many activists
like these. After a hard day trying to persuade the voters of South Yorkshire
to keep the faith with Labour, they voice their own fears over the changes
to the party.
UNNAMED WOMAN: Unless you have that grass roots
link in to the party, I mean, cheque book membership and armchair membership
is fine, but we still those grass roots that sort of connect the party
with other local organisations.
UNNAMED WOMAN: If you're getting a resolution
that comes forward for voting either at the constituency or then even ultimately
at the conference, at least that's come through where everybody has played
a role, everybody has played a part. I mean they could if they wanted just
ignore us, they do, they do frequently just ignore us.
UNNAMED MAN: Somehow one's given the idea
from London that we don't want the party run by activists.
UNNAMED MAN: I don't know about your wards,
but in my wards, every year I'm finding less people willing to go out and
spend their weekends and evenings working for the Labour Party.
UNNAMED WOMAN: I think that we are more in touch
and I think you ignore activists at your peril.
BILL MICHIE, MP: There is a feeling that
they are being taken for granted, they're being ignored, they're no longer
people who have a message themselves that they can believe in and also
to be part of the creation of that message, but are basically foot soldiers
who are carrying out the orders from above. That's a real serious problem
which I think will get worse unless the Labour Party wakes up to it.
WILENIUS: But in the seventies,
the problem for Labour was that the voices from the unions and local parties
were far too loud. Party conferences were often tarnished by rows over
policy with the serving Labour government over policy on pay , tax and
spending, and debates could turn ugly, and result in open calls on Ministers
to quit.
LORD HEALEY: The civil war in the Labour
Party for 10 years in the fifties led by Nye Bevan and then for 10 years
in the eighties led by Tony Benn did enormous damage because people don't
like a divided party.
WILENIUS: Lord Healey knows that
party reform was vital and believes Tony Blair has learned the lessons
of those years.
HEALEY: Obviously if you don't
remember history, you're bound to repeat it , as someone once said. And
they're very, very conscious of the problems Labour's faced in the past
and they don't want them to happen again.
WILENIUS: Here in Mitcham and Morden
party activists are considering the latest revolution in party organisation.
UNNAMED WOMAN: And I am here to talk about
the 21st Century party consultation, a very exciting project that's taking
place in the Labour Party at the moment, which is trying to encourage all
of us as members to think and examine the structures that make up the Labour
Party.
WILENIUS: The aim is to water down
the powers of constituency parties, and follows six years of radical party
change under Tony Blair. It's seen the leadership remove policy making
from the party conference, dilute the union block vote, and weaken the
power of the National Executive Committee.
One of the key architects of the reforms was former Labour General Secretary
Tom, now Lord Sawyer. But he now feels the party reforms are not having
the desired effect
LORD SAWYER: It isn't working, and instead
of party members being antagonistic and difficult, they're apathetic and
not interested, so, this is my point, that what you've got to do, you've
got to give them something to care about and something to engage them in
the party and the government project, and there is a gap between what the
government is doing and what the party thinks. We've got to close that
gap.
UNNAMED WOMAN: And Tony Blair is so clear
about his aspirations for this next century, for the twenty-first century.
WILENIUS: But anxiety over this
reform is growing . There are fears it will change the whole nature of
the party, and could put off even more party workers. Lord Sawyer is worried
that party activists may find it difficult to digest much more reform.
LORD SAWYER: I think this should be the
last change because it completes the changes and it allows local parties
to open their doors and get more people involved, but I think it should
be the last change. The real issue now isn't about any more changes to
the structure. The main issue is getting people involved and linking up
the party members with the government and stopping that alienation between
the two .
WILENIUS: And one of Tony Blair's
most loyal union friends, engineering union leader, Sir Ken Jackson, goes
further. He's worried enough about the impact of the latest proposals
to feel they should be abandoned .
KEN JACKSON: Well I don't think at this
moment in time the new proposals should, should, they should go ahead with.
I think what we've got to do is consolidate on what we've done, show people
the changes and the opportunities that have opened up by changing the party,
but the new proposals at this moment in time, I believe, are a step too
far.
WILENIUS: Labour leaders claim
the reforms will modernise the party and put it in a good shape for the
next 100 years. But some are worried this is an excuse to tighten control
over the party even further and to end free and open debate. They fear
this will further alienate members and many will become less active or
even desert the party.
One place Millbank always
has its eye on is the offices of the Left Wing paper Tribune. Tony Blair
wrote in the paper last week that Labour's core supporters will not get
any preferential treatment from the government. Editor Mark Seddon says
that this attitude, combined with anger over excessive central control,
is undermining party activism.
MARK SEDDON: There is a great danger that
those who seek to control and those who seek to tell people what they can,
who they can vote for and what they can think and all the rest of it will
end up with a very morose and quiescent party, that is simply not prepared
to do very much at all and that is a very big danger. People have got to
be enthused and they have got to be, they have to feel that they have ownership.
WILENIUS: Mark Seddon is also a
member of Labour's National Executive. Last week he addressed activists
in Brent East, Ken Livingstone's constituency. He warned them of the dangers
posed by the reforms, which will lead to greater centralisation.
SEDDON SPEECH: Frankly, this party, a 100
years old, has a democratic tradition which is the envy and should be
the envy of every other political party. The Labour Party has such a proud
record in so many different ways that we simply cannot allow a small group
of people, who really have little time for it, to take it over.
SEDDON: The Labour Party has moved
away from the idea of a representative democracy whereby ideas and resolutions
can flow from the bottom upwards, percolate up through this movement, hopefully
influence the leadership, to a top down approach which is largely based
on something they call managed consensus, which means for the most part
avoiding votes and resolutions whether it be in the Parliamentary Labour
Party or the constituency parties or whatever.
WILENIUS: Labour's leaders should
be watching this place very carefully. It's the Politics Department of
Sheffield University. Paul Whiteley and Patrick Seyd have been tracking
the Labour Party for ten years and they've uncovered startling new evidence
that many party members feel neglected. They say the leadership must stop
meddling in the party, as in elections in London and Wales, or it could
damage them in the future.
PAUL WHITELEY: The party leadership needs
to lighten up and allow dissent, allow initiatives, stop interfering in
the democratic processes. There's no question in my mind that what's been
happening in London is a disaster from the point of view of demotivating
the activist and if that's not done and those lessons are not learned,
Labour will take..will rue the day in the long run, that these approaches
have been taken.
PATRICK SEYD: Party members are not fools,
you know, I don't think they expect a leadership to agree with them all
the time. But I think what party members want, they want to trust their
leaders, they want to trust their leaders that their leaders take their
opinions seriously, even if they disagree with them.
WILENIUS: Their evidence shows
those active in the party have dropped from a half to a third and that
party members are leaving.
SEYD: Between our last
two surveys in 1997 and 1999, fifteen per cent of the membership have actually
left. So not only are you having a declining activist base, but actually,
even though the members, the membership did increase up until the election,
since then for the Labour Party it's declining. Something like sixty five
thousand individuals have left the Labour Party over a two year period.
Now that is worrying for the Labour Party, very worrying indeed.
WILENIUS: Those high up in the
Labour Party may finally be waking up to this worrying message, as it's
now coming from loyalists who helped deliver the reforms.
Sir Ken Jackson heads
the influential engineering union. He chats openly at a union reception
last week to former Defence Minister Peter Kilfoyle, who warned that the
party must pay more attention to its activists and heartlands. Both agree
that the government needs to do more to keep the party and government together,
and they hope Millbank is listening.
SIR KEN JACKSON: Ministers have got to
get closer to the grass roots. They've got to go out and they've got to
communicate. They've got to listen. And they've got to be seen to be listening
and that I think is what's lacking at the moment. That the activists are
people out there on the sharp end don't believe that they're being listened
to.
WILENIUS: But there are senior
figures who also feel Tony Blair's interference in selections and elections
is damaging him.
LORD SAWYER: Well, I think the big jobs
in the Labour Party, like who should be the Mayor of London or the Mayor
of Liverpool or who should be the Labour Party leader in Wales or whatever,
I think the Labour Party Leader, i.e. Tony Blair should express a view.
But there is a perception and it's fairly widely held as well that he
went beyond that, and he was involved in the mechanisms for selecting those
people and that's the kind of thing that damages the party leader and he
should stand away from that.
WILENIUS: The first signs have
appeared of fractures in the relationship between the Labour Government
and the Labour Party. There are real dangers for Tony Blair if he can't
motivate all of his party activists to work flat out in future election
battles. Some warn that without their commitment, the electoral turnout
will fall and the party could lose seats in the forthcoming local and general
elections.
JACKSON: It's important, especially
in the local elections where the enthusiasm of the population out there
isn't always great, that you actually have to get out on the doorstep.
You've got to impress on people the importance of getting out voting,
supporting local councillors et cetera. And if we don't do that, if we
don't get our message across, yes we'll suffer.
WHITELEY: If the activists fail
to campaign and elements of the core labour vote decide to abstain, to
stay home instead of voting, then Labour could lose an awful lot of seats
as a result of that and could be surprised by this.
DIGNAN: So centralised control
may have solved one problem but created another. Activists are no longer
in open rebellion but some are just walking away. This is now slowly dawning
on some in Labour's control centre. And tonight Blair will praise his
old activists as "heroes". But it may not be enough to keep the whole
party faithful.
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