John Smith's settlement? The work of the 1992–93 Labour Party—Trade Union Links Review Group

• Author: Mark Wickham‐Jones
• Published date: 01 January 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12124
• Date: 01 January 2016

John Smith’s settlement? The work of the

1992–93 Labour Party—Trade Union

Links Review Group

Mark Wickham-Jones

ABSTRACT

In this article, I examine the work of the 1992–93 Labour Party Trade Union Links

Review Group. I ask whether the measures it proposed amounted to a new, durable

settlement that governed internal relationships within the party. I detail disagreements

amongst trade unions over the format that parliamentary selections should take; I

evaluate the demands for reform of the party-union link; I ask whether support for re-

form and for one member, one vote was falling in the early 1990s; I consider whether

unions launched a ‘no say no pay campaign’with regard to the Labour Party; I assess

how much restraint was demonstrated at this time by Labour’saffiliated unions and I

consider what might have been at stake in these debates more generally. I conclude

that there was considerable antagonism in party-union relations during the early

1990s and that the work of the review group did not amount to an enduring settlement.

1 INTRODUCTION

Scholars have given relatively little attention to the work of the 1992–93 Labour Party—

Trade Union Links Review Group (Labour Party/trade union links review group,

LPTULRG, 1992a, 1992b).

1

The paucity of discussion is surprising given the extensive

newspaper coverage given to Labour’s 1993 Party Conference at which the review group’s

work was discussed. Following the recommendations of the final report, that conference

voted for the introduction of a form of one member, one vote (OMOV) for the selection

of parliamentary candidates, and for the reform of the electoral college by which the

party’s leader was elected so that trade unions took a reduced share and their members

voted on an individual basis. Many press commentators concluded that these changes

amounted to a fundamental reform of Labour’s structure, one achieved in the face of con-

siderable opposition from leading trade union figures: it was, in short, a major triumph for

the modernisers within the party. Writing in The Guardian, Hugo Young described it as ‘a

famous victory’,as‘the party makes its way into the modern age’.Hecontinued,‘Itmarks

the end of baronial domination of the Labour party’(Young, 1993, 22). For The

❒Correspondence to: Mark Wickham-Jones, School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies,

University of Bristol, 11 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1TU, UK. email: m.wickham@bristol.ac.uk

1

The exact title of the review group varies in Labour documentation: it is first called Labour Party/Trade

Union Links Review Group, then a Trade Union Links Review Group. The two published reports do not

formally identify the group’s title and reverse the linkage. The interim report being Labour Party/Trade

Union Links and the final one being Trade Unions and the Labour Party. I cite both here as Labour

Party/Trade Union Links Review Group abbreviated to LPTULRG, 1992a and b, respectively.

Industrial Relations Journal 47:1, 21–45

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

Independent,itwasa‘dramatic, close-run but decisive victory’(MacIntyre and Clement,

1993, 1). According to The Scotsman,itwasa‘history victory to curb union power’

(Macaskill and Copley, 1993) with ‘far-reaching rule changes’(Smith, 1993). These views

were reinforced a year later at the time of Labour leader John Smith’s unexpected death.

Subsequently, however, interest focused on Tony Blair’s New Labour project.

Academic analyses of the review group have been somewhat at odds with such contem-

porary press opinion. These accounts tend to accept the difficult circumstances surround-

ing the working party’s proceedings and the acrimony that surrounded its deliberations.

But they doubt the importance of its conclusions. Alderman and Carter argued ‘there were

very few substantial constitutional changes’. Their immediate judgement was that the

reforms passed at the 1993 Labour conference were ‘largely cosmetic’(Alderman and

Carter, 1994, 332). Without addressing the substance of the changes, Paul Webb noted

that ‘a somewhat bitter debate’had come ‘nowhere near constituting party-union divorce’

(Webb, 1995, 1 and 2). In a measured analysis, Meg Russell concluded the review group’s

proposals to be ‘relatively cautious’, suggesting that ‘the final package fell well short of

what many had wanted’(Russell, 2005, 30 and 56). Thomas Quinn suggested that the

group was ‘dominated by traditionalists from the big unions’(Quinn, 2004, 68) though

he goes on to suggest that the introduction of reforms did have some impact on the party’s

structure. In the Nuffield election study, however, David Butler and Dennis Kavanagh

draw a stronger conclusion about the new measures: ‘These steps effectively broke the

power of the unions within the party’(Butler and Kavanagh, 1997, 49).

Recently, Lewis Minkin’s volume, The Blair Supremacy, provides a detailed narra-

tive of the review group’s work (Minkin, 2014, 82–144). This contribution is espe-

cially valuable, not only because it is the most comprehensive scholarly account of

the review group’s work but also because he was a member of the working party.

Appointed to the review group at the start of its discussions, Minkin played a central

part in shaping its deliberations through the production of a number of papers that

fed directly into its final report. Like other scholars, Minkin disputes the outcome

of the 1993 conference as representing a triumph for Labour’s modernisers. Unlike

their accounts, he suggests that the debate was not especially rancorous or harsh.

More fundamentally, he concludes that the new arrangement did amount to a revised

settlement of the party’s structure (Minkin, 2014, 108).

In this article, I look at work of the review group and its contribution to Labour-

union relations. My central aims are to evaluate the debate within and around the

working party and to assess how substantive was the solution reached at the 1993 con-

ference. I ask what wasat stake in the debate: did discussion over OMOVmask a more

fundamental dispute within the party? I assess whether the review group led to a new

settlement, in some form o r other, of the party-u nion relationship? I d efine a settlement

as a stable anddurable set of arrangements thatmost significant Labour actors accepted

as being legitimate and enduring. Finally, I consider what this episode tells us about

John Smith’s leadership of the party. In discussing these issues, I draw on the existing

academic literature, but I make particular use of Minkin’s account as a framework for

my analysis. As a participant and as a scholar with a reputationfor meticulous analysis,

Minkin’s analysis provides a starting point for my evaluation of the review group and

Labour union relations more generally. I draw on a plethoraof other sources including

the archival papersof the review group and of Labour’s National ExecutiveCommittee

(NEC) as well as material in Tribune and trade union publications. All of these have

been largely neglected in the existing work (even to an extent in Minkin’s

22 Mark Wickham-Jones

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd