As the dust settles on the new political landscape, Labour into Power (LiP) continues to generate more heat than light. Amid the leaks, the spin and the wishful thinking, what lies behind the language of partnership is still not clear. Party structures must enable ideas to filter up from the grassroots, and encourage wide-ranging debate. The new Clause IV states that "the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe". Members owe a duty to support the Party if, and only if, they enjoy the right to full participation within it.
Conference does not meet these needs for most members. Choreography is intense, and few ordinary delegates break through the cordon. However, its proceedings are public. Labour into Power claims that Conference would retain sovereignty, but if all views are filtered through the National Policy Forum, much of the process would go underground and would Conference really be allowed to choose a minority report, against the leadership's preference?
Before more power is handed to the Forum, it must become elected by and accountable to the Party, it must earn the trust of the membership, and constituencies and affiliates must keep the right to send resolutions to Conference. Evolutionary change, rather than Year Zero, is the only sensible approach. Similarly the trade unions and the Party grew up together and breaking the link would do immense damage.
Disturbingly, Labour into Power takes an uncritical view of referenda. The Road to the Manifesto was splendid public relations, but it was hardly consultation. Members could vote No, and be held personally responsible for losing the election, or Yes, and be described by the spin-doctors as "uncompromising New Labour". Not a choice that mature adults should be forced to make.
However, the devil will be in the detail, in an NEC Action Plan published shortly before Conference, with little opportunity for amendment. This is not acceptable. Labour Reform supports enhanced democracy and is contributing to the discussion. But for change to succeed it must carry majority support within the movement. This means proper debate on every element of the Plan, and deferring final decisions until 1998. Some seek delay in order to sink the project lock, stock and barrel. This is not the Labour Reform position. And in the past the left has not blocked but initiated Party modernisation. Election of the leader by the PLP alone was fiercely defended by MPs, until the left broadened the franchise and opened the way to one-member-one-vote. The system preferred by Labour's old right has just given the Tories a leader with no mandate beyond Westminster and, we hope, many extra years in opposition.
Finally, Labour into Power envisages a gentler, fluffier party, attractive to mainstream members, particularly women, who are turned off by knockabout argument and men behaving loudly. Yet it is being driven through with crude political arm-twisting, and avoiding any debate which might produce the "wrong" answers. This mix of machismo and paranoia is not the way to inaugurate the New Millennium.