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Labour's democracy review should be about more than selection procedures

If Labour wants to shape the future, it must reinvent what it means to be a political party.

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Image, Ren, Flickr.com, some rights reserved.

The looming Labour conference is, we learnt at the weekend, to debate and deicide on a  number of rule changes, which in the current climate are obviously seen as a move by the left against the right. Which of course they might be. The party’s factions, left and right, live and die by the sword in a cycle of retribution, all about who has the numerical upper hand. This instrumentalist approach to politics will be the death of Labour, whoever wins out.   

The more important issue is not whether the reforms hurt or help either side – but whether they deepen democracy within the party and ultimately whether they pave the way forward for a party political formation that is now way out of date for the 21st century.