Miliband admits Labour needs to become more democratic
Monday, 6 July 2009 12:00 AM
By Ian Dunt
David Miliband has made a radical series of proposals to democratise the Labour party, in comments which reveal a discomfort with the state of the parliamentary party.
The foreign secretary conceded that membership had haemorrhaged severely - now standing at only 200,000 people, and called the three million trade unionists who pay a political levy to be given access to large scale public meetings.
"We don't make half enough use of them - either to listen to them or to lead them," he said.
The foreign secretary also appears to have taken lessons from America, and called for democratic primaries to establish candidates.
"We should be looking at the way in America they have registered Democrats and registered Republicans on the electoral roll - we should be looking at that here," he added.
Mr Miliband stressed the longevity and importance of the party, telling the BBC: "This Labour party is more ideologically united than at any stage, I would argue, in the post-war period. It's a party that has learned the lessons of history."
Labour had 405,000 members when Tony Blair took office, but that figure has now dropped to 176,891.
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