Councillor Liz Davies, Islington North CLP, calls for a united and effective campaign for the NEC.
The constitutional changes passed at last autumn's Labour Conference have burdened the Party with a labyrinthine policy-making structure designed to keep ordinary Party members as far as possible from the levers of power. The various forums established by the Partnership into Power package are packed with people dependent on the patronage of the leadership, which is also now able to manipulate the Party's agenda at will. Yet even as the party structures become less democratic, the role of the left becomes more crucial, and the need for a united and effective campaign to win the constituency seats on the National Executive Committee and National Policy Forum more urgent.
Although the NEC's powers have been circumscribed, it remains, in theory, the Party's governing body between conferences. The NEC can only perform that vital function effectively if it is made up of genuinely independent individuals accountable to the grass roots of the party, not to the leadership. During the general election campaign, tens of thousands of Party members worked long hours and millions of working people went to the polls to vote Labour because they believed a Labour government would build a fairer, more compassionate and more collective society.
Tragically, since 1st May, the New Labour Government has implemented or proposed measures which will have exactly the opposite effect. Already we have suffered cuts in lone parent benefit, the abolition of free tuition for higher education, a frightening increase in hospital waiting lists, the abolition of legal aid in civil cases, the continued de facto capping of local authority expenditure and a pay deal for public sector workers that amounts to a pay cut (at a time of economic growth).
Now, looming in the future, are cuts in benefits for disabled people and others, the further erosion of the value of the state pension, the handing over of state education to private businesses, and yet more restrictions on public spending of all kinds. The 47 MPs who broke the Party whip on lone parent benefit and those who have continued to speak out against similar proposals that will extend and intensify poverty have voiced the feelings not only of a substantial section of Party members but also of many millions who voted Labour.
This year's NEC elections are a critical and historic opportunity for Party members to express their disappointment with the Government and their alarm over its apparent future direction. Only six months ago -- during the Government's honeymoon period -- Party members made it clear that they preferred Ken Livingstone's politics to Peter Mandelson's. Since then the Government's policies have only caused more alarm among Party members who have had no chance to express their mounting discontent.
As I write, the left and centre-left are working to mount a united and effective team of NEC candidates -- a slate representing that broad swathe of labour movement opinion that wants to see a more democratic and accountable Party and a Labour Government enhancing, not dismantling the welfare state. All the evidence indicates that on 1st May the electorate voted for an increase in public services financed by progressive taxation. It is our job as Labour Party members to articulate these popular expectations within the Party's democratic structures.
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