Going through the motions

Even with the best of intentions behind them most local Labour Party motions are no good, says Richard Douglas. Drawing on his previous experience of drafting recommendations for House of Commons select committees, he suggests some ways of improving on them.

Motions give a voice to rank-and-file members, and lead to truly democratic policy-making. They must be a good thing, and the more motions, the better.

That’s one way of looking at things. Another is to see that most motions are, in practice, either a waste of time or an intrinsically bad way of deciding anything. I speak from some experience on this, as a former member of the (centre-left) bloc on the NEC of PCS, a union whose annual conferences are very festivals of motions — on a whole host of topics, the majority of them variously undeliverable or immaterial, and so full of moral fury as to be dominated by criticism of Mark Serwotka’s leadership from the left.

Focusing on motions at local Labour Party meetings now, it would be quite wrong to dismiss the value of motions — or, more to the point, the value of the sentiments and demands that lie behind them. In many cases the issues they relate to are highly important, and something should result from members’ concerns about them. The question is: when is a motion the appropriate response (rather than something different — more on which below)? And when it is, how can we make sure they achieve something practical?

First, some analysis of typical motions and what is wrong with them. Motions tend to have two main components: an expression of approbation or condemnation, often in highly moralised terms; and an attempt to make policy, usually to remedy a situation which has been condemned.

In some cases the motion does not really get beyond the first component — it just celebrates or disapproves, often about world events which are completely unaffected by the passing of a motion. Such cases can best be understood as rituals — people disapprove of something, they pass a motion against it, and in an abstract sense they have destroyed it. The political philosopher Eric Voegelin once expressed his scepticism towards such a mentality by describing it as a belief in the power of ‘magic operations in a dream world’.

Alternatively, people may want to signal their support for something, and by passing a motion they communicate this formally — at the same time advertising something about themselves and the values they identify with. To a large extent such motions are pretty harmless, but they are usually pretty pointless, too.

Other motions go beyond this, and explicitly seek to change things. In many cases they will identify a situation of real concern which deserves to be reformed. But very often they are poorly suited to achieving this.

One reason relates to their form and culture, the way in which they are often ‘written from below’ and framed in antagonistic terms. Typically, they are written from a very partial perspective, and without any of the considerations that would flow from having the responsibility for implementing the changes demanded. Additionally, motions are usually drafted in morally-charged, black-and-white language. Such moral pressure can in itself be an obstacle to reasoned consideration of the resolution in question. In practice, anyone who expresses any reservations about supporting a resolution — even when they sympathise with its complaints — will often fear becoming tarred with the same brush used to condemn the subject of the motion.

Another reason why motions may struggle to achieve their intended effects is a lack of focus on who is responsible for what. On one level this relates to the status of the body passing the motion, be that a local Labour Party branch, GC, or whatever. Within Labour’s internal policy-making and electoral structures, individual bodies will have certain formal roles — and here, motions (for instance, on policies to be debated at Conference, or candidates to be nominated for NEC, for example) have a particular role. Outside of such contexts, branches and GCs have no formal remit; they have no authority over the decisions of local Labour MPs or council groups, for instance.

Without paying attention to this fact, however, motions can end up holding people to account for things which lie beyond their control. In such cases motions may be responding to situations which are created outside of the Labour Party (Tory funding cuts, for example), but focus their ire inwards (for example, on Labour administrations forced to deal with them). Sometimes motions are even aimed at the Tory Government, as in the case of a recent Islington Council motion to scrap Universal Credit, for example.

Of course, those who disagree with a motion can can suggest amendments, or speak and vote against it. But this can mean getting sucked into a prolonged administrative process, and all to rescue or neuter a motion that was poorly-conceived in the first place. The more that local meetings become taken up with such motions, the risk is they will simply attract those who feel at home in what can often be quite bureaucratic debate while putting off those who do not.

So what is to be done? First, when motivated to table a motion, members might collectively have a discussion first to really focus on what exactly they want to achieve with it. Sometimes the answer might be simply to raise awareness of a situation. To this end, local parties might adopt a clear procedure for requesting speaker meetings on a certain issue (potentially with more than one speaker, to explore an issue in a more rounded and detailed manner).

Another idea would be to have a regular slot for local members and invited guests to introduce an existing campaign (e.g. anything locally, nationally, or internationally within a broad compass of social justice), and to invite members to find out more and get involved. Or where members had concerns about decisions taken by a local Labour council, say, they could — at least as a first step — invite the relevant councillor to explain the situation to them and discuss their concerns.

Such alternatives might tackle the same concerns as a lot of motions, without pushing members into a premature decision to wholeheartedly affirm or reject a statement on the situation presented in potentially divisive terms.

Where motions are to be used, those who propose them could perhaps adopt the following kind of checklist:

· What do we want to be different as a result of this motion?

· Who is it who could make a difference to this situation?

· How best can we get them to listen and respond to us?

· What exactly do we want them to do?

· How are we going to monitor whether they have done so?

· How and when do we want our CLP to report back on how effective it has been?

If all these questions can be answered properly then that in itself would be a good sign that a motion is worth debating.