Below is a copy of the presss release followed by the letter that the New politics network have sent to members of the National Convention. Clearly the leadership rules are becoming more of a story than the actual election itself.
News Release: Think tank calls for Conservatives to rethink leadership ruleThe leading think tank on political parties and widening participation has written an open letter to members of the National Convention of the Conservative Party calling for them to reject proposals to scrap the 'one member one vote' rules for electing the party's leader.
The New Politics Network has warned party activists that failing to do so could cast the party out into the political wilderness for a generation.
In his letter, Director of the Network Peter Facey writes:"If the membership is too narrow in its view, how can the solution be to give the final say over to an even narrower group? By restricting voting to just the Parliamentary Party, the next leader of the Conservative Party will be decided by a group that is overwhelmingly white, male and from the South of England. This will not be a leader who will be able to command authority across the UK. Whatever misgivings the party leadership may have about its members, they are certainly more representative of the country than the MPs."Peter Facey goes on to support former Party Chairman Theresa May's proposals to introduce US "primary" style elections for leader, involving Conservative supporting members of the public as well as members:"Imagine if a primary system had been in place now: instead of the Conservative Party spending months having a conversation with itself, the various leadership contenders would be traveling up and down the country outlining their ideas to the public at large. Instead of the debate focusing on what is good for the party, the debate would instead focus on what is good for the country. It would be a tool for inspiring and engaging with people and subsequently would help to recruit new generations of activists. The other political parties would be forced to quickly catch up."Ballot papers are being sent to members of the National Convention to vote on the proposed constitutional reform this week, with votes due in by the end of September.
ENDSAN OPEN LETTER TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION OF THE CONSERVATIVE PARTYOver the next few weeks, the Conservative Party will decide its future role in British Politics. At a time when multi-party politics has become a reality, the Conservative Party needs to decide whether it is serious about restoring its position as a party of the whole nation, or merely one with a particular focus in Southern England. Unfortunately, the present party leadership appears to have concluded that the problem with the party is its members, and what little decision-making role they presently have should be removed. In doing so, they are missing a major opportunity to reinvent the Conservative Party as a mainstream movement for the 21st century.
The New Politics Network has a long-term interest in political parties and participation. In 2003 we published "Broadening Participation: Thinking Beyond Party Membership," which included an article by the then Conservative Party Director of Campaigning and Organisation Stephen Gilbert.
In it, we proposed that far from moving away from One Member One Vote, political parties should be finding ways to further involve their supporters as well as members. We cited the Conservative Party's own pilot of running a primary for selecting their candidate (Fiona Bruce) in Warrington South. The party allowed all members of the public in that constituency to register as a supporter and gave them a vote in who the next constituency candidate should be. This is an exciting model that no other political party has thus far been prepared to experiment with.
The last General Election clearly demonstrated that British politics is becoming more local in focus. Candidates from all parties who were able to demonstrate a connection to the place they were hoping to represent did disproportionately better than candidates who were seen to put party before constituency concerns; the eras of tribal party loyalty is dead. All the major parties emphasised the need for decentralisation and localism in their manifestos. It is clear that the Conservative Party has a lot to gain by continuing to experiment with registered supporter schemes such as the one used in Warrington South. Instead however, moves are being made to further centralise candidate selection to unprecedented levels.
British politics has a massive image problem; people simply do not feel that politicians listen to ordinary voters. What kind of a signal did it send out to the general public when, before the last vote in the General Election had been fully counted, Michael Howard called for his party to roll up the drawbridge and scrap one member one vote?
There is a fundamental question at the heart of this debate: does the Conservative Party represent a mainstream view of the British public and thus a serious contender for government, or is it merely an inward-looking sect with dwindling appeal? If the party leadership is correct in its assertion that the membership is too narrow to select a leader who could win a general election, then the answer would appear to be the latter. Moreover, this is set to become a self-fulfilling prophecy: why in the future would anyone new wish to join the party once membership has become about little more than helping to fill the party's coffers and deliver its leaflets, with nothing in return?
It wasn't always like this. One member one vote was introduced by William Hague out of a recognition that the party needed to make itself more relevant to modern society. It was widely recognised then that the party needed to shed its image as an exclusive club.
It is a dangerous myth to assert that the party membership selected the wrong leader in 2001. Because of the selection rules, the membership was offered a choice of just two candidates by the Parliamentary Party, coming from completely different ends of the political spectrum. The obvious solution is to offer the membership more choice, not simply exclude them from the process.
If the membership is too narrow in its view, how can the solution be to give the final say over to an even narrower group? By restricting voting to just the Parliamentary Party, the next leader of the Conservative Party will be decided by a group that is overwhelmingly white, male and from the South of England. This will not be a leader who will be able to command authority across the UK. Whatever misgivings the party leadership may have about its members, they are certainly more representative of the country than the MPs.
Why is the party not instead discussing broadening participation? It is such a shame that the party centrally is failing to see the opportunity that they have been presented with. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats have far more firmly engrained membership structures that are becoming increasingly hard to maintain as mass membership of political parties continues to decline. The Conservative Party by contrast has always been more fluid and less formal. It is perfectly placed to develop embrace more radical forms of mass participation. Theresa May is quite correct to talk of introducing a primary-style system to open up the leadership election to Conservative-supporting members of the public as well as members.
Imagine if a primary system had been in place now: instead of the Conservative Party spending months having a conversation with itself, the various leadership contenders would be traveling up and down the country outlining their ideas to the public at large. Instead of the debate focusing on what is good for the party, the debate would instead focus on what is good for the country. It would be a tool for inspiring and engaging with people and subsequently would help to recruit new generations of activists. The other political parties would be forced to quickly catch up.
While such a model is almost certainly impractical in the short term, abolishing the principle of one member one vote will mean that the party will have turned its back on any model of genuine mass participation in future. If the Party as a whole was currently engaged in less talk and more listening at the moment, it would quickly realise that agreeing to this constitutional change will deal it a mortal blow from which it will struggle to recover from for a generation. Although many will welcome this as advantageous to the Conservative Party's opponents in the short term, there can be no doubt that that will be bad for British democracy as a whole.
We urge the National Convention to vote down these proposals and to instead look to more radical solutions with a view to reinventing the Conservative Party as a modern, outward-looking mass movement in the longer term.
Yours sincerely,
Peter FaceyDirector, New Politics Network
