Labour's Next Step

The scale of our defeat is undeniable. Labour’s worst result since 1935, the collapse of the Red Wall, Jeremy Corbyn’s resignation: these are not mere setbacks but seismic shifts that demand honest reckoning. For those of us who knocked on doors in December’s bitter cold, who defended policies we believed in against hostile media, who watched lifelong Labour voters turn away, the pain is real and personal.

Yet we must speak uncomfortable truths. While members campaigned tirelessly, too many Labour MPs spent the campaign undermining their own party. From anonymous briefings against Corbyn to public displays of disloyalty, from reluctant doorstep appearances to barely concealed contempt for manifesto commitments, sections of the Parliamentary Labour Party did more harm than good. They validated Tory attacks while demoralising activists who deserved representatives fighting alongside them, not against them.

But in this moment of crisis lies opportunity. In 1912, just months after the brutal defeat of the Cambrian Collieries strike (where miners had faced company violence, police brutality, and union betrayal), rank-and-file workers in the Rhondda penned The Miners’ Next Step¹. Their leaders had failed them, their union officials had sold them out, but rather than despair, they charted a revolutionary course towards democratic control. Like those miners emerging from defeat, we too must chart a new course. Not towards the failed centrism of the past, but towards something far more radical: a Labour Party that truly belongs to its members.

The Democratic Deficit

Our defeat was not just about Brexit, or leadership, or media bias (though all played their part). It was about a fundamental disconnect between a party machine increasingly detached from its grassroots and communities that no longer recognised Labour as their voice.

While 93% of voters choose parties over individual candidates², Labour’s structures remain trapped in a Westminster bubble where MPs act as if personal mandates matter more than manifesto commitments. Meanwhile, Constituency Labour Parties (the supposed backbone of our movement) have been reduced to cheerleaders for decisions made elsewhere.

This democratic deficit isn’t unique to us. Across Europe, social democratic parties have withered as they’ve grown distant from their base. The French Socialist Party collapsed from governing party to irrelevance in five years. The German SPD hit historic lows as members revolted against leadership-imposed austerity. The Dutch Labour Party lost three-quarters of its seats after embracing neoliberal economics. The pattern is clear: when social democratic parties abandon their members’ values for elite respectability, they die.

But we can learn from those who’ve charted different paths. The Democratic Party’s primary system, for all its flaws, gives ordinary members real power over candidate selection. When Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated Joe Crowley in 2018, she wasn’t chosen by party officials or donor networks but by Democratic voters who preferred her vision. Bernie Sanders’ campaigns proved grassroots energy could compete with establishment money when members had genuine choice.

Germany’s SPD, despite its struggles, maintains strong local autonomy that Labour lacks. Regional parties control their own candidate selection, set local priorities, and can openly disagree with national leadership without facing suspension. When SPD members rejected the party’s grand coalition with Merkel’s conservatives, the leadership listened rather than overruling them.

France’s Parti Socialiste experimented with open primaries that engaged beyond traditional membership, allowing registered supporters to choose candidates without requiring formal party membership. Italy’s Democratic Party uses similar methods, recognising that modern political movements need broader democratic participation than traditional membership models allow.

Even newer movements offer lessons. Spain’s Podemos emerged from grassroots assemblies where ordinary citizens debated policy directly. Their early success came from radical internal democracy: members voted on everything from candidate lists to policy positions through online platforms that made participation accessible to working people who couldn’t attend evening meetings.

The contrast with Labour is stark. While other parties experiment with democratic innovation, we’ve moved backwards. Mandatory reselection was abandoned. Members’ policy votes are ignored. Leadership elections are increasingly stage-managed affairs where candidates compete for endorsements from the same narrow political class that created our current crisis.

A Manifesto for Democratic Renewal

The Rhondda miners understood that democracy wasn’t just about voting for leaders: it was about creating structures where ordinary members controlled every aspect of their organisation. The Miners’ Next Step demanded that “the direction of affairs [should] rest in the hands of the men on the job,” with officials reduced to “mere clerks” carrying out members’ decisions. They envisioned a federation where power flowed upward from pit committees to district councils to national bodies, with every decision subject to rank-and-file approval.

Most revolutionary of all, they insisted that membership should be active, not passive. Rather than paying dues and trusting leaders, workers would participate directly in running their union. They demanded regular mass meetings, mandated delegates, and immediate recall of any official who betrayed the membership’s trust.

The path forward is clear: Labour must become what it claims to be: a party of, by, and for working people. Like the miners, this requires structural change that puts decision-making power in members’ hands, not just better messaging from distant leaders.

First, mandatory reselection must become the norm. Every MP should face their members before each election, not as a punishment but as democratic accountability. The trigger ballot system is a byzantine compromise that protects incumbency over representation. True democracy means members choose their representatives freely, without procedural barriers designed to favour sitting MPs.

Second, Constituency Labour Parties need real power. Currently, CLPs rubber-stamp centrally-imposed shortlists and watch helplessly as regional offices override local decisions. Instead, they should control candidate selection entirely, set local campaign priorities, and have genuine input into national policy formation. The annual conference should become a meaningful legislature, not a stage-managed rally.

Third, we must embrace open democracy. Why shouldn’t registered supporters participate in candidate selection? Why can’t we run open primaries for major positions? The Conservative Party, of all organisations, trusts its members to choose leaders. We should trust ours to choose candidates.

Fourth, MPs must be accountable to members, not just whips. Regular reporting back, mandatory surgeries with CLP officers, and clear mechanisms for recall when representatives abandon manifesto commitments. Parliamentarians should be delegates of their communities, not philosopher-kings pursuing personal agendas.

The resistance will be fierce. Career politicians will claim members lack expertise, that open democracy enables extremism, that Westminster knows best. These are the same arguments used against universal suffrage, against trade union recognition, against every democratic advance in our history.

Seizing the Moment

The miners who wrote The Miners’ Next Step understood that defeat could catalyse transformation. They envisioned democratic control from pit to parliament, workers’ power exercised directly rather than delegated to distant officials. Their vision was crushed by war and reaction, but their principle remains sound: those who do the work should control the movement.

We face our own decisive moment. The old Labour Party (managed democracy, safe seats, jobs for life) lies in ruins. We can rebuild it as something unprecedented: a mass membership party where power flows upward, where communities shape policy, where representatives serve rather than rule.

But if we fail to democratise, if we retreat into Westminster comfort zones while working people face the coming storm, we will be finished as a political force. Johnson’s “levelling up” promises will crumble under economic pressure. Austerity will return with vengeance, disguised as fiscal responsibility. When families face benefit cuts and wage stagnation, when public services collapse and communities are abandoned, they will not forgive a Labour Party that chose manageable decline over radical democracy.

The right understands this. They’re already preparing to paint us as the party of metropolitan elites, disconnected from ordinary people’s concerns. If Labour remains a closed shop of career politicians and safe seats, that charge will stick. But a Labour Party that trusts its members, that grows union membership, that puts working people in control of their own movement: that cannot be dismissed as out of touch. Democracy is our strongest weapon against populist demagoguery, but only if we actually practise it.

This transformation won’t happen automatically. It requires organised pressure from members who refuse to accept that democracy stops at the ballot box. Every CLP motion, every delegate election, every trigger ballot becomes part of a larger struggle for party democracy.

The alternative is managed decline: a party that talks about empowering people while denying power to its own members, that preaches participation while practising exclusion. We’ve seen where that leads. December 12th showed us the final destination of a Labour Party disconnected from its roots.

The Choice Before Us

Jeremy Corbyn’s greatest achievement wasn’t any single policy but proving that ordinary members could seize control of their party. Half a million people joined because they believed politics could be different. Many have departed in disappointment, but the lesson remains: when Labour trusts its members, membership soars.

Democratic renewal isn’t just about internal party structures: it’s about rebuilding the entire relationship between representatives and represented. We need a Labour Party where MPs regularly face their members, where CLPs control candidate selection, where policy emerges from communities rather than think tanks. This means embracing the uncomfortable truth that democracy sometimes produces messy outcomes, that members might choose candidates the establishment dislikes, that grassroots priorities might clash with Westminster wisdom.

The next leader must understand this truth. Not just as campaign rhetoric but as governing principle. Labour’s future lies not in triangulation or technocratic competence, but in radical democracy that gives working people real control over their political representation. The choice is between a party that talks about empowerment while hoarding power, and one that actually redistributes democratic control to its members.

The Miners’ Next Step declared: “That organisation is most efficient in which each individual has the greatest degree of responsibility.” Their pamphlet was written not by union officials but by rank-and-file workers who demanded the right to shape their own destiny.

Today, we need our own next step. Not towards the centre ground of electoral calculation, but towards the democratic horizon where Labour finally becomes what it promises: a party for the people, by the people.

The choice is ours. We can retreat into comfortable defeat, blaming voters for failing to appreciate our wisdom. Or we can build something unprecedented: a political party where democracy isn’t just preached but practised, where power flows from communities to Westminster rather than the reverse.

History offers no guarantees. But it does offer this moment (rare in political life) when everything can change. The question isn’t whether Labour can afford to democratise. After December 12th, the question is whether it can afford not to.