The end of Co-operation

The Co-operative Party is about to vote itself into (even more) obscurity. Having defeated Blairite Minister Alun Michael's proposals that it should practically cease to exist at its 1998 Conference, the working party established there has decided to recommend it disaffiliates from Labour.

Shrouded in a claim of establishing itself as a serious sister party, nobody except those on the working party can seriously expect the Co-op Party will ever regain a position as a serious force in politics once it disaffiliates. Its claim for a place on Labour's NEC will be rejected in favour of a place on the National Policy Forum where its voice can be buried alongside others. The working party's comment that it "must" take up the Prime Minister's challenge to define and promote the Third Way shows who is pulling the strings.

The chair of the working party was none other than Lord Garfield Davies, who as a humble General Secretary of shopworkers' union USDAW fought tooth and nail against supporting a decent minimum wage at Labour Party Conference. As a party, the Co-op was established in 1917, and it once stood independent candidates. It looks like the Blairites have finally extinguished it as a political force.

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