Powered by Politics: Reforming Parties from the Inside

Abstract

Three big changes are reshaping the terrain of British politics. First, people are disengaging from traditional party affiliations and concerns, embracing post-material lifestyles. As patterns of work and leisure change so do people’s interest in and capacity for political participation. Second, public expectations of public services are rising, as they become better informed consumers in service-based economies. Third, the media culture is changing, as technological advances make possible a transformation in the scale and pace of global communications. To respond to these changes, parties have to embrace change at the local level, now the centre of gravity for political engagement. Five specific proposals include: strengthening recruitment to local spending bodies; creating and managing new regional issue-based networks; the maintenance of traditional institutions as the foundations on which change must rest; transformation of the local relationship between unions and local parties; continuation and development of what worked well in the past. The Labour Party should reclaim the spirit of mobilisation and self-help that has animated reformers since the time of the early cooperative movements.