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ON THE RECORD
ROBIN COOK INTERVIEW
RECORDED FROM TRANSMISSION BBC-1 DATE: 30.5.93
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JONATHAN DIMBLEBY: Robin Cook, you're very close to
your leader, you managed his campaign for the leadership just over a year ago.
How committed is he to introducing one member, one vote, into the Labour
Party?
ROBIN COOK MP: Well he's totally committed. Indeed,
he's made it perfectly clear throughout the months covered by your film that he
regards one member, one vote, as the guiding principle of how we should take
the major decisions in our party. We should have that as our guiding principle
because it's fair in principle and it's simple in practice to carry
out.
It's the members of the constituency
parties who have to work to get their candidates elected, it's those members
who then have to support that candidate if she or he becomes elected as a
member of parliament. It's therefore only right that those members of the
constituency party should be the people who choose the candidates who stand in
that constituency. Nothing could be fairer and nothing could be simpler and I
mean to say, the Labour Party has now adopted a very clear, bold programme to
democratise and modernise the constitution of Britain which desperately needs
that breath of fresh air after the next election and we ought to be able to
prove that we can do that by starting, by democratising and modernising our own
constitution.
DIMBLEBY: And if you can't do that, if in the end
the unions were to be say no, it would be extremely damaging not only for John
Smith himself but for the party and for its standing with the electorate.
COOK: First of all, if I may say so Jonathan,
the Labour Party conference is four months away, a lot is to play for in those
four months and I am most certainly not going to sit here at the end of May and
assume that we are going to lose a vote at the beginning of October, it would
be nonsense.
DIMBLEBY: I understand that.
COOK: There's another point I also need to
make, you know, watching your film, you would think that the process of
decision-making in the Labour Party is a simple process of union conferences
after which they make a decision which then is translated into votes at the
Labour Party conference. You know if it was as simple and straightforward as
that all we need to do is to send out a sheet of paper to the unions to fill in
and send it in to us and save us the trouble of having a conference. When
delegates cast their votes at conference they take account yes of the way in
which their union conference has voted or the way in which their constituency
party's mandated them. They take account of the arguments, they take account
of the precise, specific proposition in front of them which will be very
different from some of the propositions at these conferences.
For instance, I noticed in your film
that you were filming someone at the MSF conference urging people to keep the
link. Nobody, nobody in the leadership of the Labour Party is proposing we
break the link with the unions.
DIMBLEBY: But they voted at that conference
against the recommendation of the leadership and against one member, one vote.
COOK: They voted because they have been
led to believe that many people at the leadership of the Labour Party want to
break the link and that one member, one vote, somehow breaks that link...
(interruption) I want to pursue that point Jonathan, because that is at the
heart of this argument. Nobody's proposing that we break the link, it would be
daft for us to do so. Afterall, the trade unions and the Labour Party share
the same commitment to the welfare state which their families need. We share
the same policies to reverse industrial decline which their members need in
order to have their jobs... (interruption) ... I must finish this point, this
is the heart of the debate here Jonathan. What John Smith is proposing is not
breaking the link, what he is proposing to put on the table is a measure that
would actually strengthen the link and make it easier, cheaper and more
inviting for trade unions to come into the Labour Party.
DIMBLEBY: Okay, you've made that point clearly and
fully. Now let me say to you that John Edmonds is someone who knows full well
that his close friend John Smith has no intention of breaking the link. He is
saying - I'm just asking you to presume that you must take it seriously - he is
saying No to what John Smith is offering.
COOK: Well, of course, John Edmonds represents
a major union and John Edmonds is a man of substance who has himself done much
to modernise that union in the course of which he's made sure that that union
in its decisions choses its officials on the basis of one member, one vote and
John Edmonds would fall off his seat if we were to suggest that his trade union
should choose their officials on any other system than one member, one vote.
And he speaks for that union and he is entitled to speak for that union but I
do have to say that he does not respresent the whole union movement. There are
other unions not covered in your film who have come out in support of one
member, one vote, over the very same period. Only last week, I addressed the
Iron and Steel Trades Confederation and they have just committed themselves to
supporting both John Smith and the principle of one member, one vote, at the
party conference.
DIMBLEBY: Very important but when you want to
stack up votes for something you need the GMBs of this world. Now let me
put this thought to you: That he may be negotiating, he may be saying, I think
I can get a bit more out of John Smith. John Smith can yield on this. Is
there anything more that John Smith can give John Edmonds on the principle and
the implementation of one member, one vote?
COOK: It is only a fortnight ago since John
Smith put on the table at the NEC a new proposal which will not only enable us
to proceed with selecting our candidates on the principle of one member, one
vote, but it will also enable us to draw more trade union members into the
party. That proposal was tabled only a fortnight ago. Indeed, we've yet to
have the meetings which will work out in detail how we then write that proposal
into our rules. It would be quite extraordinary if therefore we were now
contemplating moving on to a quite different set of proposals.
DIMBLEBY: So that proposal is, in your judgement,
is John Smith's as a matter of principle his bottom line.
COOK: Well, Jonathan, that is the proposal
John Smith himself laid on the table only a fortnight ago and for which he has
vigorously argued and if I can say so, it addresses two problems. Yes, it
addresses the very important issue of how we go about selecting our candidates
and puts it on the principle of one member, one vote, but it also tackles
something else - it tackles a real problem that we have in the membership of
the Party, and it proposes a new means of energising that membership, of
bringing more people into the Party, more people particularly from the Trade
Union Movement who do represent our bedrock vote, the kind of people who
support the Party in the ballot box.
Now that would mean that we... from that
proposal, not only do we get the principle, one member, one vote, but we get
more members and more votes for those candidates. And I think it's very
important that we address both those problems and that's what John Smith's
proposal does.
DIMBLEBY: And you would not want to see him
resiling from that proposal.
COOK: He has no intention of resiling from
that proposal.
DIMBLEBY: That is it.
COOK: Well, he has made a proposal which is on
the table and is now being worked out in detail Jonathan, and that was a
fortnight ago. I must say I find the tenor and trend of this interview rather
strange. It would seem to me rather more rational we should be discussing what
he has proposed rather than what you think he might be proposing at some future
date when he's no intention of doing so.
DIMBLEBY: Well, well, as you watch the film you
will know that the proposal was explained in the film and you will know that
John Edmonds and others, in that group of six, the gang of six, if you like,
have said they're not having anything to do with that.
COOK: Well, I'm not aware Jonathan that the
gang of six, as you describe them, have said any such thing. Indeed there've
been conversations with each of the six and each of the six have their own
position.
DIMBLEBY: Do you think that the compromise
proposed by Tom Sawyer has any legs - namely, that he will give to John Smith
the selection of candidates on the terms that he proposes, in return for the
Unions having a continuing say, in the present form, for the leadership of the
Party.
COOK: Well, I think what is very important is
that we address our constitution in terms of what makes sense in terms of the
outcome; what is the best way of handling these decisions. Now I've made it
quite clear to you that we all see in the leadership of the Party the principle
of one member, one vote as being the best way of choosing the candidates at the
local level, and also I have to say that was the system chosen by eighty per
cent of the grassroots of the Party when they were asked three years ago.
DIMBLEBY: Sorry, just on that one thing - does
that mean there is room for movement there or not, in your view - on the
leadership question?
COOK: We were talking there about the choice
of candidates, Jonathan, and there is no proposal coming around the bend in
that area. The proposal that's on the table is for one member, one vote and
that is what we'll be debating at the Party Conference.
On the question of the leadership, I did
myself argue way back last July, when we were still having the last leadership
election, that one of the actually important and viable parts of that
leadership process, was that a third of a million Trade Unionists cast real
votes on real ballot papers.
People were actually given a ballot
paper asking who they wanted for the Leader of the Labour Party and cast their
vote on a ballot there, and I did propose then, last summer, that it would be
perhaps sensible to have a register of Labour supporters, so that those Trade
Union members who wanted to could sign up as our registered supporters, and I
think we want to know these supporters and could then exercise a vote in
future leadership elections. Now that proposal is on the table and it was
included in the consultation exercise we put out.
DIMBLEBY: I'll have to stop you there I'm afraid.
We will watch this high wire act with continuing interest. Thanks very much.
COOK: Thank you.
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