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Compass points north Will Brown reports on Compass roadshows in Leeds and Gateshead Following
its successful conference in London last June, the centre-left Labour Party
organisation, Compass, embarked on a series of regional ‘roadshows’ taking
in Yorkshire and Humberside, the north east, Scotland and Wales, among other
areas. Besides launching regional Compass groupings, the purpose of these
meetings was to feed into the Compass project of developing a ‘manifesto for
the democratic left’. ILPers
attended two of these meetings – at Gateshead on 26 November and Leeds on 3
December – and the organisers very kindly let the ILP have a small stall at
the Leeds event which attracted considerable interest in our pamphlets and
Democratic Socialist. The
Gateshead meeting was fairly thinly attended but was a thought-provoking event.
In his opening address Compass chair Neil Lawson claimed that although Compass
was a pressure group for change in the Labour Party, it was concerned to link up
with ‘thinking’ groups outside the Party as well.
Ed Balls: gave keynote speech The
keynote speech was given by Gordon Brown’s former adviser, Ed Balls (now an
MP). He was clearly worried about the current state of the Party and its
declining support at the last election, especially those former Labour voters
who either voted Liberal Democrat or stayed at home. He said that only 25 per
cent of public service workers had supported the Party and it would need only
13,500 voters to move away from Labour in the marginal constituencies to produce
a hung parliament next time around. The dilemma, Balls argued, was how to renew
the Party while in power without having a damaging public fight. He seemed to
imply that Blair should not be opposed in public, only behind closed doors. However,
people in the audience pointed out that the renewal process could not be
delayed, it has to start now, and if that means some discomfort for Blair, then
so be it. Many Party members are at breaking point and if he is allowed to
redefine the Party’s social policy unhindered (in education and health, in
particular) then there will be little or nothing left to renew when the
‘right’ time comes. It was also argued that the biggest group we should be
worried about are those core Labour voters who did vote Labour at the last
election – but only just! An
open room The
Leeds meeting was better attended – some 50 to 60 people, including Labour
Party members and ex-members, representatives of trade unions, ILPers and
others. As with the London event in June, Compass’s aim was realised – to
provide, in the words of Yorkshire organiser Alex Sobel, ‘an open room for
debate to discuss politics in the hope of influencing the direction of the
Labour Party’. Indeed, it is one of Compass’s key achievements that often
radically-differing opinions are expressed in an atmosphere of friendliness and
comradeship. The
event started with a plenary session that featured a speech from Yvette Cooper
(Minister of State in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister) and a ‘Question
Time’ panel on which Cooper was joined by Treasury minister John Healy, MEP
Richard Corbett, councillor Keith Wakefield, and author and journalist John
Harris. Cooper
is somewhat difficult to make out – she clearly has some concern for the
future direction of the Party and wants to engage with the centre-left. Yet, as
one might expect from a government minister, she comes across as primarily
concerned with the electoral sustainability of the Labour government. Asking
‘what do we want to have achieved after 12 years in power?’ is all very well
but seems a bit late in the day given that eight of those 12 years have already
passed. Perhaps
the most interesting aspect of Cooper’s contribution was her call for the
Party – government, MPs and members – to engage in wider, popular,
non-parliamentary campaigns. Her example of this was the Make Poverty History
campaign which she claimed was able to grow and have an impact partly because of
the support of the Party and government. She called for a similar popular
campaign around the issue of child poverty. Although her view of Make Poverty
History might well be challenged by some non-Labour Party activists, as a model
for revitalising Labour politics it has more to recommend it than the endless
and pointless ‘consultations’ the leadership are so fond of. Although
billed as Question Time the bulk of the follow-up session was taken up by
opening statements from panel members, plus some long responses to comments from
the audience. The sharpest and most critical statements came from Harris, and
one or two contributors from the floor, which, given the bland and vacuous
contributions from the politicians, were much needed. Corbett rehearsed the need
for European-wide thinking and regulation of the market, while Healey gave us a
series injunctions to rebuild, revitalise and engage with the Party membership,
look to the longer term, build on past achievements, and other mother- hood and
apple pie stuff. Harris
correctly identified public services as the key area of current debate, the
issue attracting the most pointed criticisms of the government. It is here, he
argued, that the left has to defend the core values of public service and hammer
home its insistence on social justice, equality and democracy. ‘Some strange
people enter into the gap left by the withdrawal of the state,’ he claimed,
pointing to the involvement in Academy schools of the likes of the Vardy family
and a quasi-masonic group called Merchant Adventurers. He argued that the logic
of current policy is that the private sector and corporations will drive the
public sector – the most worrying aspect of Labour’s direction. People
in the audience called for the left to articulate some vision of the kind of
society we wish to see, warned about the rise of the religious right, especially
in schools, and called for the Party to work for a better partnership with the
trade unions. Following Harris’s thinking, one contributor claimed that the
good things achieved by the government will not be remembered because Blair will
pave the way for the Tories to end public provision and privatise the public
sector. The
meeting then split up into three discussion groups: towards a new left political
economy; democratisation and a new collectivism; and the good life and the good
society. These themes reflect the working groups set up by Compass to engage in
drafting its manifesto. If my impression is correct, these discussions were all
fairly general, producing little of real substance except some useful exchanges
of broad ideas and principles. Ideological
shift The
discussion on a left political economy ranged from responses to international
challenges, such as globalisation and environmental threats, to thoughts on
housing policy and redistribution. It was suggested that while there is some
broad agreement on the left about where to go, Blair has brought about a
fundamental shift of thinking on public services. In confronting global capital,
we are engaging in an ideological contest and the problem is one of political
strategy, of where to pitch our ideas. While much of the discussion focused on
the demarcation between public and private – regulation of trade, intervention
to redistribute wealth, etc – it was also argued that a left political economy
needs to go beyond the neo-liberal agenda, focused on whether there should be
more or less state or market, to develop strategies for transforming both the
public and private sectors, particularly through co-operative endeavour and
democratisation. The
workshop on democracy and collectivism discussed the centrality of democracy to
a socialist vision, both as a means and as an end to a better society. The good-humoured
and friendly discussion sought to identify the values that democracy embodies,
not only democratic accountability but also active participation in the process.
It was acknowledged that there is a tension between devolving democracy and
ensuring universal provision. The historical and contemporary role of trade
unions was also debated, and the need to learn from a range of democratic
experiments was recognised. The
‘good life and the good society’ group was a strange affair. Discussion
centred on the argument that once a certain stage of affluence has been
achieved, further increases in wealth cease to improve the quality of life,
including happiness. In fact, material success leads to social failure if
society is unequal, as demonstrated by health inequalities, an increase in
violence and a growing prison population. The good life should be associated
with collectivism and feeling valued and appreciated, it was argued, but
currently people feel unvalued and their jealousy and resentment sometimes
expresses itself in acts of violence. Unclear
where this was leading, one participant asked how happiness could be measured
and whether inequality was the sole source of ‘unhappiness’; he was advised
to read academic research on happiness. Another contributor spoke with great
enthusiasm about the work of Badiou (a French academic at the Sorbonne) who
seems to be questioning the value of truth and democracy. The discussion
continued without any apparent focus, although those present seemed to be
sympathetic to some of the ideas. Political
strategy Overall
these sessions (like those held at the London meeting in June) gave the
impression that Compass does not have very clearly defined political positions,
and has rather little idea about political strategy. Indeed, it is entirely
unclear how the avowed aim of ‘influencing the Labour Party’ will be
realised, especially given the barriers erected by the current leadership to
grassroots involvement in policy-making. Given the general and rather
indeterminate nature of these discussions, one suspects that the real job of
drafting the Compass manifesto will be undertaken by key members of the three
working groups, although the organisers are at pains to invite contributions and
have already sent questionnaires to members. It
will be interesting to see how this turns out. Compass covers a lot of political
ground on the left and it will only develop a coherent manifesto, one that gets
beyond generalities, if it makes some hard political choices. At the moment
members (and those attending the Leeds meeting) include everyone from Brownite
government ministers, to activists in what used to be called the soft left, to
people who have left the Party in disgust. In
one sense this is what makes Compass such an attractive and valuable forum.
These days any organisation that can provide this sort of genuine open arena for
debate on left politics and the Labour Party is doing us a great service. We
have to hope that this openness won’t be lost once it has pinned its colours
to the mast in a manifesto. Thanks
to David Connolly, Jonathan Timbers and Barry Winter for contributions to this
report |
