Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Labour leader Ed Miliband says Labour needs "the courage to change"
Labour leader Ed Miliband has opened a special party conference hoping to approve plans to reform historic links between the party and trade unions.
Party members will vote on ending the automatic affiliation of trade union members and introducing "one member, one vote" in leadership elections.
Mr Miliband said the change, with union members able to opt-in to join the party, would transform politics.
Unite boss Len McCluskey said the union now has "difficult choices" to make.
"Start Quote
End Quote Ed Miliband Labour Party leaderToday, we won't just be voting to open our doors. We'll be voting for the biggest transfer of power in the history of our party to our members and supporters. "
The union was at the heart of controversy surrounding the selection of a Labour candidate in Falkirk last year, which prompted Mr Miliband to propose the changes.
Mr Miliband won the last leadership election largely thanks to support from unions, but Mr McCluskey said he suspected only 10% of its one million members affiliated to Labour would opt to stay in if they were asked now.
An estimated 400,000 Unite members do not vote Labour - a situation Mr McCluskey said was untenable.
He said: "We want to get more of our members engaged with Labour at grassroots level. We see this as an opportunity and a challenge to actively talk to our members and try to persuade them to give a commitment to Labour."
Union members who "opt-in" to join the party will be asked to pay a £3 fee.
The BBC's Brian Wheeler, who is at the conference, says the mood in the queues for voting cards has been so far upbeat.
"But inside the hall, the feeling is these changes are long overdue and they are there merely to 'rubber stamp' them," he says.
A Labour Party veteran told him: "It's been coming for as long as I remember, and that's an awful long time."
The key changes
A new method of electing Labour's leader - the electoral college, which gives unions, party members and MPs/MEPs a third of the votes each, abolished in favour of one member, one vote
MPs have sole nomination rights for leadership candidates and those candidates will need a higher level of support than at present - possibly 15% of MPs
All union members will have to 'double opt-in' if they want to take part in a leadership contest. They have to say that they are content to give money to Labour AND that they want to become 'an affiliated supporter'
Only full party members - not trade union 'affiliated supporters' - will choose parliamentary and council candidates
Changes to London mayoral selection - Labour's candidate to be selected in the same way as the party leader
New leadership rules will be put in place this year - but changes to the party's funding will be phased in over five years
Members from the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, which is not affiliated with Labour, have been holding a demonstration against the changes outside the centre.
At the moment, Labour leadership elections are decided by a complex electoral college system, with equal weight given to the votes of three groups - one third to MPs and MEPs, one third to ordinary party members and one third to trade unionists.
Mr Miliband wants a "one-member, one-vote" system - something Labour leaders since John Smith in the early 1990s have tried and failed to bring about.
'Party of equality'Addressing Labour activists at the conference, the party leader pointed out that in leadership elections, an MP's vote was worth 1,000 times more than each party member's.
"Let's make ourselves the party of equality. Not just in the policies we propose. But in the politics we practice," he said.
He said he wanted to hear the voices of working people "louder than ever before", but added: "In the 21st century, not everyone wants to be a member of a political party. And you shouldn't have to pay £45 to have a voice in the Labour Party."
Mr Miliband's proposals have already led to the GMB union reducing its affiliation funding. Unite, Labour's biggest backer, is to discuss its funding arrangements next week.
But, with Labour ministers, the party's ruling National Executive Committee and the big trade unions already signed up to them, Mr Miliband is expected to win the vote.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair is among those supporting the proposed reforms.
He said Mr Miliband had shown "real courage" on the issue, which was "long overdue" and a reform he should have made himself.
The party leader said: "Today, we won't just be voting to open our doors. We'll be voting for the biggest transfer of power in the history of our party to our members and supporters.
"Today if you vote for these reforms you will be voting for Labour to be a movement again. Arguing our case house by house, village by village, town by town. But movements are only as strong as the people within them. The depth, the diversity, the reach of a movement is the true measure of its strength and its ability to make change.
"That's why we have to change, that's why we have to bring people in."
"Start Quote
End Quote Grant Shapps Conservative Party chairmanIt's the same old Labour - union bosses still pick the leader, buy the policies and rig the selections"
Mr Miliband has argued that if even a fraction of union members sign up to be affiliated supporters it could more than double the number of activists the party can draw on and open politics up to a wider cross-section of people.
But Conservative Party chairman Grant Shapps dismissed the proposals as a "white flag" to union bosses, that allows them to tighten their "stranglehold" of the party.
"It's the same old Labour - union bosses still pick the leader, buy the policies and rig the selections," Mr Shapps said.
"Ed Miliband has shown he is too weak to stand up to the union bosses, and too weak to stand up for hardworking people."
Meanwhile, John Smith's widow, Baroness Elizabeth Smith, writing in the Guardian, said her husband would have backed Mr Miliband's plan for one member, one vote.
Of Mr Miliband, she said: "He has a capacity to bring people together and a determination to change our party so that we can change Britain."
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Labour to vote on membership reforms
Dengan url
http://beritaberbagiceria.blogspot.com/2014/03/labour-to-vote-on-membership-reforms.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Labour to vote on membership reforms
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Labour to vote on membership reforms
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar