1. Under the rule changes tabled by Gordon Brown at the end of June, and ratified by the Labour Party conference on 23 September, unions and local Labour Parties are banned from submitting motions on current political issues to Labour Party conference. All the formal powers that conference once held to determine party policy have been transferred to the leadership, which will only have to "consult" with the National Policy Forum, itself a well-controlled and largely impermeable body.
These proposals finish off Labour Party conference as a serious political event. They are an attempt to finally destroy the Labour Party as a democratic political organisation based on the labour movement. Instead of a broad based party grounded on the participation of organisations with roots in the communities and workplaces, Labour is being reduced to a US style political party. It will be nothing more than a narrow political machine populated by members of the professional political elite. The goal of giving working class people a voice in politics through the labour movement, which is why the Labour Party was set up in the first place, has been renounced. The only input that the labour movement will have in the new party structure is through a junior lobbying role for trade union leaders in the Policy Forum. That could never counteract the fact that policy wonks, spin doctors and the business lobby have more or less permanent access to ministers
2. Until now, unions have been able to use Labour conference to challenge Labour leadership policies on privatisation, anti-union laws, council housing, the health service, and other issues. In recent years they have done so. The union leaders have then kept quiet, without complaint, when the Labour leadership flatly ignored conference votes. But even a modest revival of assertiveness, confidence, and democracy in the ranks would have pushed the unions to start kicking. Gordon Brown saw that "risk", and that is why he has double-locked and bolted the gates on the already choked-off avenues for a working-class political voice in the Labour Party
3. The proposals went through the Labour Party conference without dissent from the unions. This despite the fact that major union leaders had been denouncing the proposals only a few days before. "The joint leader of the UK's largest trade union has warned Gordon Brown he will fight plans to change the Labour party's constitution. Derek Simpson of Unite said proposals to reduce the union's policy-making role would be resisted..." (BBC News, 9 September). Tony Woodley of TGWU-Unite and Billy Hayes of the CWU billed themselves to speak at a rally opposing the proposals on 11 September
"Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of T&GUnite, said that there was 'not a chance' that the unions would support such a constitutional change
Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB, said: 'No one in the GMB is up for changing the constitution.'. Asked if the GMB would vote against, Mr Kenny said: 'Unless there is a dramatic change of heart, it is 99.9 per cent certain that we would'." (Times, 12 September). No authoritative union committee or conference had voted to back the proposals
But then: "Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: 'We have been asked to trust the Prime Minister. GMB will recommend that we try the new system for two years. If it does not work, agreed mechanisms will be in place to restore the current system on contemporary motions'." (Independent, 21 September)
4. We must now throw ourselves into a fight in the unions over the coming months, up to their 2008 conferences, for them to repudiate the Brown plan and table proposals in the Labour Party to restore their political rights. It is the only way to rally broad forces either to tackle Brown/Blair in the Labour Party or to assemble the basis for a new workers' party
5. Our fight in the unions to call the leaders to account will be a fight against the odds. It is nonetheless necessary. It also means that the fight cannot be limited to a fight to restore the status quo. It should be a fight to restore the full right of the unions (not just the "big four") to table motions at Labour Party conference, to abolish the Policy Forum, to make the union representatives on the Labour Executive fight for union policy, and to apply maximum union pressure to the New Labour leadership to respect the conference decisions on privatisation, anti-union laws, rail renationalisation, council housing, the health service, and so on, passed under working-class pressure.