Refounding Labour : a summary of Labour's consultative document

Keir Hardie is one of the primary founders of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) and then of the Labour Party, of which the ILP was itself a part. Labour is now seeking to refound itself.

It is, therefore, appropriate that I should have recently returned from a week-end school run by the ILP (now Independent Labour Publications) where we discussed the "refounding" document which I summarise below.

It will also be discussed at our Dronfield Labour Party Discussion Meeting on Sunday.

Harry Barnes.








Peter Hain is Chair of the Labour Party's National Policy Forum. He has issued a Labour Party Consultative Document entitled "Refounding Labour : a party for the new generation". He says "I want to hear from as many people as possible - in constituencies, in the unions, in the affiliated societies, from those holding elected public office and beyond - about the future shape of the Labour Party.....After May 5 all local parties should arrange a meeting to discuss these ideas ahead of the deadline for submissions on 24 June."

Unless someone has access to the document, plus the time and inclination, this is not an easy matter to pursue. The document contains introductions from Ed Miliband and Peter Hain and is a further 9,000 words long and asks no less than a total of 105 questions. Nor is it easy to summarise, as it tends to be dominated by technical problems related to the complexities of the current structure of the Labour Party.

So below I have settled for (a) linking together quotations from the document about the current problematic position the Labour Party now finds itself in, (b) selecting several quotations from the limited number of areas where the document comes near to making any suggestions of its own and (c) selecting a dozen questions from the 68 "Big Questions" it lists at the close of the document. I would only add that what may be missing from the document is an overall question which might clarify matters and then make it easier to tackle the many the bits and pieces in the document. A question such as "what should the objectives of the Labour Party be, and how can these best be achieved?". It is a Keir Hardie type question.

(a) Facing the Facts (the bits in brackets are mine).

"...we need to be...frank with one another about where and why Labour has been abandoned by people who used to support us...between 1997 and 2010 Labour lost nearly five million voters...With our party massively in debt...After the 2009 elections they (the Tories) held nearly half of all council seats...we (were) left with some 4,500 Labour councillors in the UK facing well over 9,000 Tories...Labour's share of the vote in European elections...(was) only 16 per cent in 2009....General Elections used to be a two horse race (between Labour and Tories)...(but reached) a new low last year (between these) of only 67 per cent...the lowest since 1922 when Labour first emerged as the main opposition to the Tories...We began 2010 with half as many individual members as we had twenty years ago and less than 40 per cent of our 1997 peak...members nowadays get involved less often in canvassing on doorsteps, delivering leaflets, attending meetings, signing petitions, or even displaying election posters...affiliated membership among unions linked to Labour has gone down too, from a peak of 6.5 million in 1979 to 4.6 million in 1992, and in 2010 just 2.7 million...(in 2010) Nearly 40 percent of voters decided which way to vote during the four week election campaign...The number of constituency parties represented at Conference fell from 527 in 2002 to 444 in 2009 and only 412 in 2010, or under two thirds the total entitled to attend."

(b) Seven Suggestions (my emphasis).

1." Some have suggested the delegate system could be abolished except perhaps for election to a CLP Executive which managed the administration of the Party. That would leave as the main agency for policy-making and direction of campaigning the regular meeting for all individual members and affiliated members - with the option of adding in registered supporters, maybe also with recognised consultee groups invited to take part where appropriate."

2."Online users confirm that the internet makes it easy to participate in civic and political affairs, such as by accessing websites, signing an e-petition or responding to a government e-consultation."

3."Local Labour Parties must work more closely with other civic activists and social entrepreneurs, building local alliances with community groups where we share a common sense of purpose."

4."... a successful renewal of Labour's bases demands councillors who are community orientated, not committee orientated, facing out from the town hall, to the community, not locked in the town hall remote from the electorate. That also requires breaking free of the large committee structures and rule-bound approach of Local Government Committees and large district or county borough parties - or even perhaps their abolition".

5."Our representatives are elected because they carry the Labour banner. There may be a case for adopting a code to which they all must adhere, requiring minimum levels of participation in Parliament or their Councils and engagement with local communities."

6."... the National Policy forum... where there are major options or disagreements...minority positions need to be routinely reported to the Annual Conference for final decisions."

7."The fundamental aim of our policy making process should be to support the Party in developing a policy programme which appeals to, and connects with, the electorate."

(c) A Dozen Questions (my emphasis).

1."...members...How do we better encourage their participation in campaigning?"

2."...how should CLPs and local branches be reorganised?"

3."How do we better engage affiliated trade union members with Labour locally and improve their relationship with Labour MPs, councillors and candidates?"

4."...local community groups...may contain many Labour supporters: how can these...be better linked with the party and our representatives locally?"

5."How do we strengthen the voice of members?..."How can we increase our membership...?"

6."Conference is the supreme decision-making body of the party. How do we make it more exciting and relevant, more responsible, less corporate?"

7."What can we do to support our members and local parties in debating policy?"

8."How do we decide which policy issues to focus on?"

9."Is the National Policy Forum the correct focal point for our policy discussions?"

10."What should be Annual Conference's role in deciding policy?"

11." How do we need to change the way we campaign to win in 2015?"

12."How can the candidate selection process be improved?"


There is also an important section entitled "Political education and training" which suggests holding an annual summer weekend 'Festival' plus "modules and courses that cover political education for new and especially young members, covering the history of socialist ideas and the labour movement..." (on this see Dronfield Blather's presentation on Political Eduction here.)

Act Now To Defend Iraqi Trade Unions.

See here.

More details from Brendan Barber.

A Good Start

Derbyshire Miners' Day Release Class 1980-83 at Hurst House, Chesterfield.

The meeting at Chesterfield on May Day about Adult Education went well. It was based on the experiences of the Derbyshire Miners' Day Release Classes which had run from 1952 to 1994.

40 people attended the meeting, which fitted in well with the fine facilities in the Council Council Chamber of the North East Derbyshire District Council. John Halstead a former Lecturer on the Day-Release Courses started the ball rolling by telling us about Michael Barratt Brown who came to run the whole range of Trade Union Day Release Classes on behalf of the Sheffield University Extramural Department and then went on to become the first Principle of the Northern College which caters for adult students. John then read out a well-appreciated May Day Message from Michael who is now 93 years old.

To provide time for discussion in the best adult education tradition, the three speakers spoke only for ten minutes each. First, John Burrows outlined his own experiences in the Derbyshire Coalfield which led him to attend the Day Release Classes and become an official at Area level in the NUM. Today he is leader of the Labour Group on the Chesterfield Borough Council. Whilst he pointed to the significance for himself and many others of the courses, he pointed out that they could not now be reproduced due to the decline of coal and of similar industries. Neverless, he felt it was an educational approach that needed to be re-established and adapted to radically changed circumstances. Secondly, Bob Heath spoke. As a miner he had attended the courses in the late 1950s before moving into full-time adult education at Ruskin College, then eventually returning to teach on the Derbyshire Miners' Courses themselves and become their Director of Studies. In the study of subjects such as industrial relations, economics and politics; he stressed the significance of examining serious ideas and theories which challenged one's own preconceptions. He saw our whole lives as being shaped by powers and influences; so that an intelligent, lifelong and questioning concern for such matters was needed to advance democratic arrangements and give them substance. Finally, Toby Perkins spoke. He is the Labour MP for Chesterfield and a Shadow Education Minister. He stressed the importance to society of it expanding its educational avenues so that people developed the skills that are needed to handle the demands of the modern world. This being done, at its best, when adults continued to be part of the process.

A steady and ready flow of questions and contributions followed from the floor of the meeting. Half way through this process an opportunity was provide for four bodies who were present with literature stalls and/or displays to outline the ongoing work of their organisations in the field of modern day adult education. These were (1) Post-16 Educator, (2) the Chesterfield Workers' Education Association operating from Hurst House and (3) Chesterfield's University of the Third Age and (4) an initiative associated with the Northern College. On the latter, Sue Rolstone explained the objectives of the Rolstone Heathfield Education Fund to develop annual conferences and study weekends in the areas of trade unionism, politics and campaigning. Sue is the widow of Peter Heathfield, who was both Secretary of the Derbyshire NUM and then of the full NUM itself. He had always showed the keenest interest in the work of the Derbyshire Miner's Day Release Courses and as John Burrows had pointed out earlier, Peter was the person who had encouraged him to join its classes. (For an update on John see here).

Whilst no specific plan of campaign emerged from the meeting, it had drawn together people with a key interest in the form of adult education which had operated for more than four decades in the North Derbyshire Coalfield. We are now in a better position to network together given our shared interests. For how we next seek to deliver on this potential - watch this space. In the meantime, there is plenty to chew over in this think-piece.

The May Day March In Chesterfield

See the video.

Peter Ryley on "Death or Resurrection : the future of adult education"

Peter Ryley sets the scene for our May Day Debate as advertised here.

The editorials are gloomy. Local authorities report a massive loss of places. The WEA wrestles with difficult funding rules. Education without accreditation is not funded and is treated as if it is of no significance. The education of older adults is being marginalised and left to the voluntary sector through the U3A. University adult education departments are closing.

So, where do you start a discussion of adult education today? How about with a celebration of its success? Yes, it has been a huge success; not merely popular, but loved. It is emancipatory, transforming people’s lives. What is more, modern education would not be where it is today without the pioneering work of adult educators. Let’s just think of some of the triumphs.

1. The stereotype of university solely as a place to go after leaving school still exists, but should be dead. Mature students make up more than half the numbers in Higher Education. It is no longer an exception to see adults on degree courses.

2. Access courses continue to flourish and are a recognised method of entry into higher education. The Open College Networks continue to provide alternative accreditation routes, specifically aimed at promoting adult learning at all levels.

3. The Open University continues to be an international exemplar of good practice and high standards.

4. The issue of class is firmly on the agenda in terms of access and equality of opportunity, even if it has been bureaucratised through OFFA and appears to aim at rescuing ‘talented’ individuals from their class rather than ending the process of the systematic exclusion of the working class as a whole.

5. Policy makers at least pay lip service to the concept of lifelong learning and make the linkage between it and economic and social development.

6. The health and social benefits of learning throughout life have been recognised.

Millions of people participate, millions enjoy it and for many it is a lifeline, a source of support and encouragement through the turning points their lives. It is popular, successful, and has played a major role in the development of education in Britain. So where is it? Where are the newspaper headlines? Where are the party policies and vigorous debates? Where are the campaigns designed to win the votes of these millions?

It isn’t just that other issues such as health, welfare and, right now, libraries are more salient. Paradoxically, the very success of adult education has helped to make it less visible. It now tends to be hidden within general education policy, rather than being treated as distinct. This has resulted in merging of institutions and the loss of separate adult education centres in favour of integrated and mainstreamed provision. Once that happens, adult education is transformed from a discrete service into a marginal and vulnerable part of larger institutions where it tends to be poorly understood.

That lack of understanding pervades the public arena. Adult educators are left floundering about how to make the case for something that seems to have slipped from view. Once one of the great left causes, it is now no more. Even worse, it is often derided by ignorant leftists as a middle class perk -‘flower arranging for the blue rinse brigade’ - rather than a central part of our social landscape.

It is true that some of it did fit this stereotype. And this has meant that affluent students are now part of a process of privatisation by stealth. Individual classes and tutors self-fund and thereby escape crippling bureaucracy and form exclusive social circles. Profitable and popular areas, such as creative writing, which were once used to cross-subsidise more difficult community outreach, have been cherry picked by, for instance, the publishers Faber and Faber, who now run their own Faber Academy for creative writing. This is all well and good, but where does it leave the rest? What happens to those who cannot afford private provision? What becomes of a comprehensive national service and of universal, open access?

This has created a problem; us adult educators have been struggling to find the language to describe the intrinsic worth of what we do. We search desperately for utilitarian justifications and in doing so indicate our weakness, our lack of confidence to assert that adult education is not merely of social or economic benefit, but is a universal human need and human right; the mark of a civilised society.

So how do we get a more confident view of adult education back on the agenda? It will take a long process of patient agitation and activism and I think that we have to ask ourselves a number of questions before we can proceed.

1. How do we describe adult education? How do we break away from pleading for funding as a supplicant to determinedly assert the provision of adult education as a right?

2. How do we make the case that formal and informal learning are not separate but are intrinsically linked?

3. How do we deal with the issue of ownership and control of services? After all, years of voluntary, municipal and government investment have been thrown away with no concern as to the impact on current staff and students, let alone on future generations. If there is one thing that the long process of contraction has shown, it is how utterly powerless adult educators and their students actually are.

4. Where do the boundaries of state and voluntary provision lie?

5. Finally, and this the central issue for us on the left, how do we rediscover, redefine and understand adult education as a popular cause? Harry Barnes’ and others former work with Derbyshire and Yorkshire miners is a reminder of the emancipatory nature of adult education, promoting social advancement and tapping into a long tradition of working class education.

And it is here that I would start my personal advocacy, drawing on the work of the pioneering adult educator and Scottish polymath, Patrick Geddes. Because that is where I ended up working, my focus would be on universities and their role in providing adult education. Geddes wrote about what he called the University Militant. This was not a precursor to Sixties sit-ins, instead it was the idea that the university, in the broadest sense of the word, is the driver of the intellectual development of a society, intrinsically linked to its communities and an open resource. At the moment we are seeing universities justify their high fees by rushing to become ever more like gated communities, importing the middle classes to be educated in some of our great cities, whilst a number of latter day Jude the Obscures gaze through the ornate ironwork, muttering about it ‘not being for the likes of us’.

University adult education was and still can be, if any survives, an alternative mission, one that opens the gates and does not simply teach ‘outside the walls’, but demolishes them. A university should be an open institution, a place of learning for all the community, one that invites people in and goes out to meet them. And by all the community, I mean all the community: employers, employees and trade unionists; people from council estates and Barratts estates; young and old, both role models for learning in their communities; and the poor, the homeless, the marginalised and offenders. The current model that sells higher education for its economic benefits will eventually run aground on the rocks of reality. My campaign would be for an inclusive system that sees education as of intrinsic worth rather than simply a route to a bigger payslip, and central to that would be adult education as community engagement. Doing this would mean abandoning the patronising language of aspiration raising and, instead, getting down to the hard work of meeting the aspirations that already exist, changing the institution to fit the people, rather than people to fit the institution. To my mind, this would be a progressive agenda that should be a part of any contemporary, progressive political movement and a starting point for the renaissance of an adult education that this time round will not be lost because of the whims of politicians.

Peter Ryley has worked in adult education for around thirty years in local authorities, further education colleges and, latterly, the University of Hull’s Centre for Lifelong Learning before taking early retirement following a restructure of the Centre. See here for his blog.

Important May Day Meeting In Chesterfield

What Now For Adult Education? Lessons from the Derbyshire Miners.

A Discussion Meeting.

Speakers

Toby Perkins, Labour MP for Chesterfield and Shadow Education Minister

John Burrows, Leader of the Labour Group on Chesterfield Borough Council.

Bob Heath, former Director of Studies for the Derbyshire Miners' Day Release Courses.

Time

1.30 pm (after the May Day March and Rally)

Date

2^nd May, 2011

Venue

Council Chamber of the North East Derbyshire District Council, Saltergate, Chesterfield (Entrance and car parking facilities via the back of the building)

ALL WELCOME

Developments in North Africa and the Middle East

Click into the above map of North Africa and the Middle East to obtain an enlarged version. This map was effectively used by Dr. Farhat Nofal at our discussion meeting on Sunday to illustrate the radical political developments which are taking part in this crucial area of the world.

Since only December, protests in Tunisia and Egypt have achieved revolutionary moves towards the establishment of democracy. Other protest movements have so far achieved a variety of results. Powerful protests and repression continue in Yemen which could soon see a dramatic transformation. Governmental changes have came about in efforts to try and contain protests in Jordan, Oman and even in Syria. There is the armed conflict in Libya. Major protests have also emerged in Algeria, Bahrain and Djibouti, whilst they have also re-emerged in Iran and Iraq. There is then the continuing turmoil in the Palestinian areas and with Israel. Whilst protest movements have also emerged in Morocco, the Western Sahara, Mauritania, the Sudan, Lebanon and even in the highly oppressive circumstances of Saudi Arabia. Whether these regimes are monarchical or republican, they tend to have functioned under dictatorial and mainly family control.

Whilst complexities exist due to divisions within Islam between Shia and Sunni influences, from the complexities of Western involvement, over widespread concern about the well-being of Arabs in Gaza and Western Bank and from the imperial interests of Iran and Turkey: democratic forces such as nascent trade union movements in the region are fully in need of our support.

For a breakdown of the 2010 - 2011 Middle East and North Africa Protests also see here.