The ejection of Walter Wolfgang from the Labour conference yesterday is a really sinister development for that party, and seems to confirm their arrogant evacuation of democractic debate and accountability. Internal democracy in the Labour party has never been much to write home about, but the new tactic of silencing their own grassroots at their own conference reaches new heights of absurdity.
For American readers unfamiliar with British party conferences, they're somewhat different to US party conventions. They're aren't just a finely organised media event, although they seem to be heading that way. Grassroots activists vote on a series of policy motions, and frequently defeat or amend the plans of the party leadership. Ordinary grassroots members are called upon to speak on either side of the motion, and there is a real power in the hands of the party membership- if only for that one week of the year.
The supreme irony that Mr. Wolfgang was protesting at a passage of Jack Straw's speech concerning democracy in Iraq. After refusing to allow their grassroots to debate a motion on Iraq, it now appears that there is no role for delegates at Labour conference other than to applaud on cue for the waiting television cameras. Labour party members looking for a democratic political party which opposed the invasion of Iraq have an obvious place to go.
The best word of the day was from Alex Salmond: 'Labour can censor their own delegates, but they can't gag the people.'
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3 comments:
Richard --
This seems to be a disturbing development. Is there a precedent for this, either in Labour or other parties? I have not looked at the british papers online lately -- can you give a sense of the range of opinions/outrage about this?
dc
Lee --
The Bush rally stuff is inexcusable, especially when it happened on public property, which was most of the time. I was always reminded of Smith v. Alwright when it happened, because it has long been established that the parties are not private clubs that can whimsically exclude whomever they want. Smith was about the all white primary of course, but I have a hard time believing that tossing epople out of rallies who, say, had a kerry sticker on their wallet (a case that actually happened) would pass muster in court if the event was either open to the public and/or on public property.
But it is not explicitly comparable -- the comparison would be if during a committee meeting or party caucus a member of, say, the Democrats, got tossed for not toeing the party line.
Oh come on, Richard, you don't really think that outside the irrelevance of the Liberal Democrats, that the party conferences have much effect? I've already posted on Militant Moderate how a defeat for the leadership on a vote at the Labour conference makes no difference at all. I'm not necessarily sure it should, either - the tasks of government are totally different to satisfying the whims of an ever-dwindling number of party activists. Let's face it, the number of party activists in the country now would barely send 10 members to Parliament. And that's just those who are bothered to send in a membership form, much less those who will pound the streets.
Now, the ejection of Mr Wolfgang was ridiculous, and disproportionate. Heckling shouldn't be a crime. Far more worrying, though, was not the fact he was removed from the chamber. It was that he was later detained under the Prevention of Terrorism Act by police. That goes a lot further than the action of a bunch of jumped-up yellow-jacketed stewards at a conference.
For whilst I don't deny that Mr Wolfgang has a right to heckle, there's been a problem emerging in British politics over the last few years. That is, that people in the crowd think that by getting near to the speaker, they have just as much right to be heard as the person they came to hear.
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