A Free Left Blog

The Labour Party overwhelmingly backed reform today (1st March), and it was a pleasure and a privilege to be there with friends and colleagues. Myself, I had a little speech written to come up and deliver but was unfortunately (for me at least) not called. This is what I had to say: Hello everyone, my name is Ben Cobley and I am from Wimbledon CLP. It’s great to be here, and I’d like to say thank you to all the people who have been involved in preparing for this event, and for managing this process of reform. Our thanks must go especially to Ray Collins, who has done a fantastic job with his report . I think it gives a very honest appraisal of where we are as a party and how we need to change as a party to be more engaged with people out there in the country. The specific proposals I think are all sensible and will help involve more people in what the Labour Party does – from trade unions, but also from those who are not union members. Being from London, the proposal ...

My relationship with the Labour Party isn’t a loving, happy one. I sometimes say, half-jokingly, that joining the party (or rather rejoining, in 2010) has nearly made me into a Tory. It hasn’t, and won’t. But nevertheless it’s been true for me that while from the outside I could see that all is perhaps not well, from the inside the picture that more intelligent Tories and others paint of Labour sometimes seems painfully accurate. The centralism; the pointless, nit-picking bureaucracy; the lack of feeling for individual responsibility; the reflex instinct to control people rather than let them be free: all are largely true about Labour’s culture and organisation. When you find yourself agreeing more with what some opponents say than what your own lot do, you’re in a bit of trouble. Into that personal context has come The Collins Review into Labour Party Reform , a report prepared by the former Labour General Secretary (Lord) Ray Collins following consultations after the...