defend it and USE itlert By Peter Firmin MANDATORY reselection of Labour MPs, as an elementary form of accoun tability, was one of the major democratic reforms achieved in the wake of the experience of the Wilson/Callaghan goverments.
Instead of a Constituency Labour Party having to pass a motion of noconfidence in its sitting MP, with all that involved, before being able to choose a new candidate, the sitting MP is now in an (at least formally) equal position to other nominees. It has also ensured that MPs have been much less willing to ignore their CLPs than in the past.
Of the democratic changes, however, reselection was also the most likely to come under attack. Whilst election of the Leader and Deputy Leader by conference, and NEC control over the manifesto are both reforms that they would rather see abolished, the party establishment recognise that they can generally rely on their friends in the trade union bureaucracy to deliver the block votes the right way in these nationallydecided issues.
Reselection is different. Here decisions rest not with well-paid time-servers but with the rank-and-file of the party and the unions who do not share the same identity of interests.
During the last (and, so far, only) round of reselections this meant that, at the end of the day, the NEC had to endorse Parliamentary candidates who were abhorrent to them. This was by any means without a fight; they did their utmost to prevent 'undesirables' from entering the select Westminster clubs — accepting the most petty of appeals, 'overseeing' CLPs, endorsing 'shortlists of one' (against thier own guidelines) and making some strange arrangements under boundary changes - the 'Shore amendment.
With the able assistance of the media, they managed to limit the damage. Only the most rabid of right-wingers, such as Ford in Bradford and Lewis in Newham, were 'de-selected', with other left-wingers taking the place of SDP-defectors.
Yet even this success is not enough
for the right wing. This time around boundary changes wont come to anyone's rescue, and having been through the experience once, the rank-and-file are that much wiser. The bureaucracy are not willing to leave things chance; for them their ability to drop policies they don't like and to keep their underworked and overpaid positions are sacrosanct, and not to be endangered by 'loonies' who naively feel that a candidate is chosen to carry out policies and should be accountable to those who choose her or him.
can't do away with altogether, (not even the 'softest' of lefts would accept that) they have to move quickly to save the skins of those most in danger - reselection can begin this December (18 months after the General Election).
Hence the hastily drawn-up constitutional amendment to be put to conference by the NEC (the haste itself of course works in the right wing's favour - there has been little time for the left to campaign against the change, particularly in the unions).
The claim is made that the change is "more democratic", that it means 'one member, one vote', and with the help of the media, always willing to rush to the side of the labour movement, the left are pushed into a corner where they are forced to deiend what everyone has now been told is an undemocratic procedure, and, of course, it is said that the left 'don't trust the membership'.
The truth is very different. major change that would come from the new rule is that several million trade unionists who pay the political levy would no longer have the opportunity of a say in the selection of candidates; only the quarter of a million full Socialist Viewpoint, No. 1, Autumn 1984. Page 12
-Blackpool '84= CABINS PAU FOR AFAIRER, BETTER BRITAIN members would do so. (A cynic might even say that defeat by the Tories on the political levy is being conceded already, and this is merely a tidying-up operation to take account of it).
No-one need be surprised that only two members of the Trade Union section of the NEC opposed the change; nothing plucks at the heart-strings of one bureaucrat more than the plight of another who might be having problems with the membership - the views of the members themselves are irrelev-
The other crucial element is that under the rule changes selection would be taken away from the one body in the party able to hold an MP accountable - the General Committee of the CLP. As the only policy-making body of a CIP, and the only one in a position to regularly monitor the work of an MP, the GMC is the obvious body to elect the candidate. Instead, under the proposed change, selection would be carried out by a procedure which exists solely for that purpose (whether it be by postal ballot, at one mass meeting or at branch meetings) leaving the MP able to ignore the GC for 5 years.
The charge of the left 'not trusting the members' must be shown up for the hypocrisy it is. Those in favour of the rule change trust' the membership only to turn up to one meeting every 5 years; the left (those who believe in fighting issues through, not the manoeuvrers) encourage members to attend and participate in regular meetings, in policy-making, in active campaigning and in electing delegates who reflect the views of that membership. One member, one vote exists already.
What really shows the purpose of the proposed change is that it would