Cruddas: how I’d change Labour as chair


by Newswire    
2:00 pm - July 17th 2010

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Jon Cruddas MP: Speech to Labour Friends of Searchlight today

Thank you for inviting me to open your conference this morning.

Thank you Nick [Lowles] and Sam [Tarry] for organising it and for your work in building the extraordinary movement Hope not Hate.

Today we begin to discuss Labour’s journey of change.

A party of organisers. Organising for a party of social justice and community.

We have Hope not Hate, London Citizens, the Christian Socialist Movement Labour Neighbours Projects, Compass, and many examples in various Constituency Labour Parties.

We must learn from each other.

We bring different methods but we are united in our belief that organising is the heart of politics

Community is the strength of the people.

We are here to work together.

And we know that communities do not just exist. They have to be built by making relationships. We do not simply have a neighbour. We have to make ourselves someone’s neighbour. In our neighbours we make a common life together. In our welcome to strangers we show our humanity.

Labour needs to be a party that lives by its values. I want to see a more democratic party with an actively involved membership. A conference that is strengthened and its agenda setting opened up. We need to turn the party outward to the communities we seek to represent.

We must create a party rooted in a culture of organising.

We organise to build relationships with each other for the common good: the living wage, a new playground, safer streets, affordable housing.

These local goals matter as they reflect our belief in a sense of neighbourliness, of duty and obligation, responsibility and solidarity. But how do they relate to the larger Labour Movement?

At the heart of all transformational movements is the politics of virtue – creating a life well lived.

Vaclav Havel said in ‘Power and the Powerless’:

We must not be ashamed that we are capable of love, friendship, solidarity, sympathy, and tolerance, but just the opposite: we must set these fundamental dimensions of our humanity free from their “private” exile and accept them as the only genuine starting point of meaningful human community.

Organising is the struggle for a virtuous life of love, justice and compassion. These are relational qualities that we show to each other. It is the way friendship (comradeship) leads to reciprocity

Put simply, ‘Do not do to others what you would not want done to yourself.’
And reciprocity leads to the ideas of justice and the equal value of all.

It is where ethics meets politics.

We are part of the tradition we can trace back to Aristotle- the desire to build the Polis – the community – the city – that allows humans to flourish. The Politics of Citizenship. Democracy has always been the way people organised against the domination of the market and became citizens.

The struggle for democracy teaches us to look at the world with new eyes.
Political struggle has always been the university of Labour. It is how we learn politics and become political leaders.

Not action alone.

Not theory by itself

But action and theory informing one another.

A party dedicated to organising must also be a party committed to open minded thinking.

To a convivial culture of knowledge and education, of writing and speaking and conversation and laughter.

It means listening to what people care about and not what we think they should care about.

For all sections of the party, that’s perhaps the hardest thing of all.

Labour has lost this kind of politics. We became a machine spinning stories to the media and pulling the levers of power.

The leadership retreated into the offices of state and lost touch with the people. In many areas we stopped organising and so we stopped learning and thinking.

And we stopped understanding the ordinary lives of the people and the sentiment of the country.

This afternoon we will hear from the leadership contestants. The contest is about more than 5 individuals competing for office. It is about the future of our party and the fate of our country.

The Coalition Budget threatens us with a new recession.

The Spending Review will report in October and the size of the cuts it proposes will be both unnecessary and devastating.

We are living in the eye of a storm.

The low paid, the poor, welfare claimants will pay for the greed of bankers and the inflated salaries of public service managers and consultants.

This is the politics of the Conservative Party who are the defenders of the property rights and prerogatives of the rich. It is the politics of the Lib Dems who have been lost to their free market fundamentalists.

They are soft on the banks, hard on the poor, and threatening to growth.

That is the basis on which we should take on this government.

But make no mistake the Coalition is a serious threat to the future of Labour.

The political realignments of this crisis could exclude Labour from government for a decade. This is the goal of the Coalition – a centre right majority for the next decade cloaked in the progressive mantle.

And make no mistake they are actively investigating new forms of community engagement and organisation.

But it will not succeed because we will build an alternative.

We will begin locally in our workplaces and neigbourhoods.

We energise communities

We engage in dialogue with people

We build new relationships

And so we create a new kind of Labour movement as part of a New Covenant with the People.

There are no short cuts to a Labour government of transformational change. What do we need to begin our journey?

First we need a leadership that will effectively oppose the Coalition and be able to embrace the political changes for Labour’s revival.

It means being both sure-footed and open to uncertainty.

It means a politics of pluralism and alliances.

And it means a collegial, inclusive style that values good relationships and draws on collective wisdom

We need to change our party:

We need a new statement of our identity; our essential purpose; what we are for, to build a new language anchored in the ordinary lives and sentiment of the people
a new chair that is elected by conference;
a new commission on party structures and a renewed culture of organisation;
a comprehensive review of policy under a joint secretariat of Party Chair and Party Leader;
in a root and branch deliberation about Labour’s future politics and policy strategies.
We must democratise the National Policy Forum.

For that reason if the position is created I would put myself forward for the elected chair of the party – to help build this plural, democratic Labour Party.

But we need more, much more.

Labour needs a new political economy.

We need a politics of the Good Society – to allow people to become genuinely fulfilled.

Mutualism, association and relationships are Labour values. Compassion our prime virtue.

We must take them back from the Conservatives.

Labour can be at the forefront of new economic thinking; engaging with new ideas in political philosophy and sociology; working out new approaches to society, the family and welfare.

If we combine organising and thinking together we will create a winning movement.

Second, we need our leadership to do two things:
dare more democracy
rebuild the economy of our country for a common prosperity

We have to take on the vested interests that have brought our country to its knees.

Rebuilding a productive and social model of capitalism means working together in partnerships, and for economic democracy.

There can be no democracy and no common prosperity in Britain until the banks are reformed.

The power of money is real and we need to build a real opposition based on democracy.

We need finance to help build the low carbon, sustainable economy of the future.

The banks that are ‘too big to fail’ must be broken up.

Employee representation on remuneration committees so that managerial prerogative can be challenged.

Cap interest rates on unsecured loans.

A regional and community banking system to bring credit to the people and capital to localities.

A financial transaction tax.

And tax justice – end corporate tax evasion and tackle price transferring.

A common prosperity means a regional spread of sustainable wealth creation.

Increasing demand by creating good properly paid jobs

Legislation for a living wage and equal pay starting with government public procurement contracts.

Pension funds investing in social enterprise, infrastructure development and green industries.

A major house building programme.

The mission of an organised labour movement is to make a common life between those who are divided.

The message our conference gives to the party today and to the 5 leadership contenders is:

We are making a new life anchored in a new politics of virtue.

Lets start the debate about how we will organise for it.

ENDS

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Reader comments


1. Martin Coxall

Sounds like the Big Society to me.

Almost exactly like it, in fact.

2. Bob B

Heaven preserve us. It reads like pure guff to me.

3. Chaise Guevara

Be interesting to have a pro-PR Labour chair.

4. Roberto C

Sorry, what does any of that mean to the average man on the street?

I know it’s aimed at LabourScum apparatchniks, but surely the whole problem lies in the fact that said apparatchniks speak a different language – a kind of community-organising-managementspeak – than normal people.

5. bobo

no that wasnt the problem.
community organisers across the world speak special community organiser languages. that’s fine. they can talk to one another however they like as long as they know how to communicate with their communities. that’s their job.

the problem deep in labour’s core has been that the top of the parliamentary party hasnt seen any need to talk to the organisers and through them the grassroots labour movement. can you imagine hrh blair spending a couple of hours in a community group somewhere answering questions on the political vision behind new labour? or having an open discussion on housing with a local residents association?

the idea was command and control. thinking about this led me to watch walter wolfgang’s ejection from the conference in 2005 (you can see it here: http://youtu.be/f5kwlctiBW0). it’s horrific. and if you watch it, check out how EMPTY the conference hall is. compare it to the heckling documentary from 1966 to see how things have changed: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2010/02/do_people_heckle.html

complacency and triangulation have starved the left – blair’s version of TINA: the working class have nowhere else to go.

it’s no good just listening to what people have to say now. most are totally out of practice when it comes to political thinking (see the suggestions made to the recent treasury and clegg websites if you want to be depressed), and you can’t blame them given the shameful ‘consultation’ processes inflicted on everyone by the last government. so putting organising at the heart of the thing isnt just about a sudden re-evaluation of the party, but about starting the process of movement building all over again.

cruddas is right, but i fear he’ll be long gone by the time any kind of participatory labour party emerges.

6. Chaise Guevara

“I know it’s aimed at LabourScum apparatchniks, but surely the whole problem lies in the fact that said apparatchniks speak a different language – a kind of community-organising-managementspeak – than normal people.”

Normal people who use normal words like ‘LabourScum’ and ‘apparatchniks’, I take it?

7. Tim Worstall

“A party of organisers.”

Lordy be: doesn’t the idea that the British have had enough of being organised resonate? That we’d rather like to have a little bit more of that freedom to map out our own route to the grave?

Missing that rather important part of the zeitgeist is really going to condemn you to political irrelevance…..

8. paul barker

Well, most of that was utterly resonable but then Cruddas chucks in a bucket of knee-jerk opposition & an utterly ridiculous analysis of the internal politics of the Libdems, like he would know much about it.
We can see the Labour strategy, 4 years of mindless opposition, slanders & dirty tricks, followed by 6 momths of being moderate & reasonable. Think it will work ?

9. Gary

#7

It’s funy how Tories have interpreted their (almost) election victory as a ringing endorsement of all their zany positions and opinions.

Let’s get this straight. You (almost) won the election because people didn’t like Gordon Brown, because David Cameron convinced enough people that the Tories no longer held such zany, cranky opinions, and that the Tories convinced enough people that the entire future of the country depended upon slashing the defecit.

Feel free to interpret your (near) election win as part of some sort of desperate cry of the oppressed Briton’s against speed cameras, the hunting ban and all those other nasty Nanny State ZaNU Liebour policies. But just wait until hospitals start closing, and let’s see what peoples priorities really are.

10. Tim Worstall

“It’s funy how Tories!

NB: I am not a Tory…..

11. Gary

Are you the UKIP guy?

If so, you have some nerve talking about ‘zeitgeist’ and ‘political irrelevance’.

12. Tim Worstall

“Are you the UKIP guy?

If so, you have some nerve talking about ‘zeitgeist’ and ‘political irrelevance’.”

Ooooh, I dunno. When I was the national press officer for the party and we had a national election UKIP came second. Labour came behind us, recall?

13. Gary

So the main example of your relevence is a result that happened over a year ago, in an election with a record low turnout, that you were totally unable to translate into any meaningful results at the general election? I think it would be fair to say 2010 was the year when UKIP’s vote nose-dived.. boo boom.

14. Tim Worstall

Two and a half times what it was at the previous general election….

15. Gary

Crikey, at this rate you might possibly win a seat at the next election.

16. Gary

In fact, I really hope you do make a breakthrough at the next election. I think Kilroy-Silk would make an excellent MP.

17. Mr S. Pill

@16

Alas, Kilroy is no longer a part of the UKIP family, he set up Veritas a few years back but not much has been seen or heard of them of late…

But it is amusing to hear a UKIP supporter talk about political relevance (what was it, 2.5% of the vote?)

18. Tim Worstall

“But it is amusing to hear a UKIP supporter talk about political relevance”

3.1%….more than the BNP, Greens, SNP, Sinn Fein……indeed, more than BNP and Green put together.

19. Gary

Mr Pill, I have heard that Kilroy has left – I remember UKIP’s new public face appearing on all those hard-hitting and relevant political shows, such as Have I Got News for You. And wasn’t he really rude to a Belgian? Gosh, that party sure has captured the zeitgeist.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Cruddas: how I'd change Labour as chair http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  2. sunny hundal

    Jon Cruddas' speech today on how he'd change Labour party as Chair is quite enticing: http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  3. Richard Johnson

    RT @sunny_hundal: Jon Cruddas' speech today on how he'd change Labour party as Chair is quite enticing: http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  4. Leon Green

    RT @sunny_hundal: Jon Cruddas' speech today on how he'd change Labour party as Chair is quite enticing: http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  5. catherine buca

    RT @sunny_hundal: Jon Cruddas' speech today on how he'd change Labour party as Chair is quite enticing: http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  6. kevinrye

    RT @libcon: Cruddas: how I'd change Labour as chair http://bit.ly/9QAgtl

  7. Therese

    I could imagine a Cruddas-led Labour party being in coalition with the Lib Dems. Possibly without Clegg! http://bit.ly/9LSm73

  8. Kevin McNamara

    not a fan of #condemnation, but with speak like this, can @uklabour REALLY reconnect? http://bit.ly/bbFhcZ

  9. Steven Hedley

    RT @libcon Cruddas: how I’d change Labour as chair http://bit.ly/bAQC33





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