Do members of political parties lead best in the dark?

First of all, thank you to everyone who got in touch by email with supportive words after my unconstitutional removal from my elected role as a member of the Alba constitution review group.  The general sentiment was "shocked but not surprised".  There was one particularly interesting message from someone who actually contacted a key person in the Alba leadership a few months ago to ask for specifics about what was meant by Alba being a "member-led party", given the evidence of an increasingly top-down approach.  The reply was as follows: Alba is member-led because the members determine party policy, and they do so by electing a Conference Committee which sets the agenda for conference.

Now, that's fascinating, because in my blogpost of 21st April, one of the key points I made is that the members do not elect or control the Conference Committee.  It does have some "elected members", but those are elected by the few dozen people who attend National Council, not by the party membership as a whole.  And one of the specific complaints that has been made is that meetings of the Conference Committee have sometimes been swamped by a large number of other individuals who just somehow "appear" and are supposedly there "as of right" even though no-one can seem to quite identify the clause in the constitution that gives them that right. 

From what I've been able to deduce (although I haven't been told this by the Alba leadership, who were extremely non-specific), the blogpost of 21st April is probably what has been used as the pretext for my unconstitutional removal, due to a supposed allegation that it contained breaches of confidentiality.  I defy anyone to actually read the post and reach that conclusion - as you can see, it just contains generalised points about the arguments for and against constitutional reform, without revealing any details at all about what happened at meetings of the constitution review group or what decisions were taken.  Indeed I specifically made the point right at the outset of the post that I was bound by confidentiality rules and that I therefore wouldn't be commenting on the work of the group.  I do think it's wonderfully ironic that a post in which I simply tried to engage the members of a "member-led" party about the arguments for constitutional reform, a subject which you would expect the members of any "member-led" party to be making the final decisions on, has been regarded as a disciplinary matter because it's apparently of the gravest importance that the members of the "member-led" party are kept totally in the dark about the whole topic!  And heaven forbid that anyone explain to the members of a member-led party that they do not in fact elect the Conference Committee, when the bogus claim that they do is apparently the main basis for the notion that Alba is member-led.

The other justification for "member-led", incidentally, was that the NEC is "fully-elected".  Well, that's sort of true, but again, the point is elected by who?  You don't get to vote for the eight ordinary members of the NEC by virtue of being a party member, you have to purchase a vote by getting your chequebook out (figuratively speaking - it's 2024) and paying a premium.  It's a pay-per-vote system.  And is it therefore possible for wealthy individuals to purchase a significant number of votes on behalf of others who might then be expected to vote as a bloc?  Is there any safeguard in the system to prevent that happening, and can we be sure it hasn't already happened?  Last year, for example, when the results of the vote were mysteriously never published?  

These are the really serious questions the constitution review group should be grappling with, and getting on with sorting out, to ensure that in future the party members actually are empowered and in control.  Instead, apparently the priority is to keep them uninformed and to disenfranchise them by removing someone they've elected, because after all, how else would you go about demonstrating that the party is already member-led and that no substantive reform is required?

As for what I can personally do to get this situation resolved, obviously there are limitations because it would depend on the leadership reacting in good faith to the points I'm putting to them - nobody can force them to act like democrats or even to abide by the party constitution.  (Theoretically a court of law might be able to, but the operative word is "theoretically".)  What I've done so far is write back to the General Secretary to point out that the information he supplied me with was far too vague and raised far more questions than answers, and that not only did the NEC exceed their constitutional powers in making their decision, in one key respect they did so on the basis of completely false information.  

There has been no reply so far - which is fine, we're all busy people, but there's just something about a tweet I saw earlier from Shannon Donoghue (who as well as being a member of the review group also has family ties to the leadership) which makes me wonder if I'm going to come up against a collective line of "this is just too unimportant a matter to waste our time commenting on or replying to".  Well, I'm sorry, but the unconstitutional overturning of an election result is self-evidently a very important matter, and if I haven't heard back within a week (which I think is generally regarded as the reasonable amount of time within which a reply should be received), I'll certainly be chasing it up and looking for some proper answers.

Shannon does so adore the word "wee". "Wee gang", "wee blog", etc, etc. The only snag may be that Alba could end up as a very "wee party" if the nonsense of the last few months carries on for very much longer. So far it appears that it will. https://t.co/oLHk649Ys2

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024

Just seen this reply to Shannon. I don't criticise anyone for accepting a platform that's offered, and there may be a case for going on a far-right podcast to put the alternative point of view. But when the far right podcaster then praises you and talks to you like a mate...? https://t.co/m7C0IhWH0W

— James Kelly (@JamesKelly) September 11, 2024