There remains a contradiction at the heart of Compass’s pluralist mission. Compass, while not formally affiliated to the Labour Party, is registered with the Party, and has a rule that forbids members of other parties from being full members.
Compass does not allow members of political parties other than Labour full membership. It is considering changing that rule – it must make the change, if chair Neal Lawson’s claim that Compass is a pluralist organisation and part of a movement towards a genuine Left-pluralism is to be taken seriously. Compass is a major sign of life in Labourism, and a source of pluralism on the Left; take for instance Compass’s call for tactical voting, at the recent General Election.
But there remains a contradiction at the heart of Compass’s pluralist mission. Compass, while not formally affiliated to the Labour Party, is registered with the Party, and has a rule that forbids members of other parties from being full members.
In other words, Compass’s ‘pluralism’ is very strictly curtailed, because members of other parties cannot participate in Compass’s formal democratic structures, and thus cannot play a democratic part in determining Compass’s direction.
This came home to me with full force recently. Applying to Compass for membership, I was told that, as a Green Party member, I was entitled only to associate membership, with no voting rights. I received my membership pack, and rather bizarrely this included a letter that stated:
“You’re a member of a democratic organisation. Every year Compass members get a say in how the organisation is run through our management committee elections [etc.].”
I queried this with Gavin Hayes, Compass general secretary. He replied that I received this letter, the same as any other Compass [full] member gets, because there are so few associate members that it is not worth there being a separate letter written for them [us]. This seems a rather unsatisfactory response: it is rather insulting or at least bemusing to receive a letter telling one that one is part of a democratic organisation – when in fact one is excluded from its democracy.
I queried with Gavin Hayes the status of the rule excluding members of other political Parties from full membership in Compass. He replied:
“The rule is something we examining at the moment.”
This is a vital test for Compass, and for the future of Labourism. If it really wants to embrace a pluralist politics, a politics suitable for a politically and electorally reformed UK, if it really wants to prepare the way for the new coalitional politics which AV and PR will bring (see here), then it needs to change this rule. So long as Compass forbids members of other progressive political forces from full membership, then it remains tacitly nothing but a glorified Labour Party faction.
But if Compass were to allow the likes of me – and Caroline Lucas and Adam Price and Salma Yaqoob and so on – in, on equal terms, then it would be practising what it preached. That would be pluralism in action.
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23 Responses to “Compass must practice what it preaches on pluralism”
John77
@ Richard Lawson
“One of its key values it toleration of people and ideas that differ from me and mine.
If that makes me a pluralist, then so be it. Does that mean I am not a socialist?”
Very definitely it does mean that you are not a “Socialist” – it verges on the libertarian views espoused by Rousseau and abhorred by by Bolshevik and Menshevik alike (and anathema to the Labour Representative Committee of the Trades Union Congress)
Rupert Read
@John77: Oh dear! Haven’t you read this yet?: https://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/07/the-best-way-for-labour-to-renew-is-through-a-frank-and-open-exchange-of-ideas/
You sound like a tribalist to me…
Edward Carlsson Browne
I’m a socialist, and Labour remains a democratic socialist party. Frankly, if I disappear off to the Greens, that’s one less voice in the party arguing against those who want to take us away from socialism.
The Labour Party is very far from perfect. But it’s not beyond all hope yet and reforming the Labour Party is a much easier route to a decent leftist government than making the Green Party into an election-winning force. I’ll think again when the Greens start making a serious challenge in working-class seats without a major university.
Sure, with AV we can co-operate a little. But we don’t have it yet, there’s no guarantee we will get it and even then local elections will (Scotland aside) still be carried out using FPTP. If the Greens want to help elect Labour MPs in general election years, I think that’s excellent (and I’ll happily make them my second choice). Hell, even under FPTP if there’s an argument that the Greens can do better than Labour in a seat Labour can’t win, I’d like it if we could withdraw our candidate and tacitly support the Green. For that matter, I’d be a fan of an electoral fusion approach with a view to integrating the Green Party into Labour in a similar manner to the Co-Op Party – although I doubt any Green would go for that.
But in most years, the Greens are our opponents in local council elections and therefore co-operation can only be limited to issues. In those years, I don’t see how I can do other than oppose them.
And this is all before I get on to my deep dislike of the NIMBY/anti-growth positions taken by a minority in the Green Party…
If somebody else wants to be a pluralist, fine by me. If they want to consider themselves as a socialist at the same time, also fine by me. But I’d rather have one strong party of the left. I’m not interested in collaborating with our opponents at the ballot box. I’m interested in convincing them to join said party of the left. That’s not to say I want ideological unity – God knows party meetings can be dull when we’re only discussing administrative business – but I do think it’s better to work for political union than some form of loose co-ordination.
Rupert Read
hi Ed.
My ward is mostly Council estate. There are lots of Green Councillors in similar wards.
Edward Carlsson Browne
I’m well aware there are Green wards like that. I’m in Cambridge and that describes Abbey ward, where the Greens regrettably seem to be getting more and more entrenched.
It’s just that in constituencies without large amounts of students or middle-class progressives, Greens are thin on the ground, whether there are council houses or not. You’re strong in Lancaster, for example, but you’re not a factor in Blackburn.
Show me evidence that the Greens are beating Labour in council estate wards across the country, and I might be convinced. Even then I’d want to investigate questions of differential turnout – in Abbey in Cambridge the middle-class bit is strongly Green (the Lib Dems having deliberately abandoned it) and has very high turnout, whereas the bits that are largely council housing are more Labour friendly but have dreadful turnout.
Because the Greens only have a serious presence in about half a dozen areas, they can’t be called a national force. Labour can be. In FPTP elections having a Green candidate makes it more difficult for the Labour candidate to win, especially if he’s on the left because it’s harder to nick votes off the Tories or right-leaning Lib Dems. Given that I still consider Labour to be worth fighting for, that makes the Greens an irritant in my book, not a strategic ally.