University of Bristol Law School

menu

The UK Co-operative Party: Movement, relationship, and representation

Sean Kippin

Introduction

The Co-operative Party, since its foundation 100 years ago in 1917 has been the designated political representative of the wider UK cooperative movement of member-owned businesses. Originally a ‘department’ of the Co-operative Union (the sector’s umbrella body), it enjoys contemporary independence from the CU’s successor, Co-operatives UK.

The Co-operative Movement

The co-operative movement that it represents has been a significant influence over the UK’s political, social, and economic history, providing an alternative form of business ownership to the traditional privately held shareholder model. The most notable cooperative in the UK is the Co-operative Group, which claims to have 4.5 million ‘active members’ while the sector as a whole contributes £34.1bn per year to the UK economy (Co-operatives UK). While co-operatives are notable for their alternative structure, they are also atypical in their values-driven nature. This is best exemplified by the International Cooperative Principles which speak to not only the internal structure of cooperatives but also their role in society and the communities in which they operate. According to Murray (2012):

Cooperation [...] was a movement of those marginalised by the market, their alternative designed explicitly to stand the principles of capitalism on their head. [...] Instead of capital employing labour [...] labour would employ capital, and the cooperative would operate in the interest not of profit but of each and every one of its members.

Despite this outward, societal focus, the high profile of some cooperatives, and the politicised history of the movement in the UK, knowledge of the cooperatives social mission is not widespread.

Partnership with Labour

Since 1927, the Co-operative Party has sought to achieve its objectives through the election of ‘cooperators’ to parliament (and subsequently to other UK local government and devolved legislatures) through a partnership with the larger UK Labour Party in which candidates are ‘co-sponsored’. High profile Labour and Co-operative MPs have included the former Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and Secretary of State for Children, Schools, and Families Ed Balls; the current Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Kezia Dugdale; the former First Minister of Wales Alun Michael; the former Shadow Education Secretary Stephen Twigg; the former Chairman of the Treasury Select Committee John (Now Lord) MacFall.

Despite this, there is next to no academic research concerning the effectiveness of the arrangements by which they are able to represent not one but two political parties simultaneously. Even so, it is possible to link the activities of Co-operative Party MPs to significant policy changes that occurred during the most recent Labour government of 1997-2010, most notably NHS Foundation Trusts and Hospitals (Yeo, 2002), Co-operative Trust Schools, and the modernisation of the regulatory framework surrounding member owned enterprises (Hunt, P, personal communication, 20 October 2016).

Representation

The objective of this piece, however, is to focus not on the policy gains achieved by the Co-operative Party on behalf of the Co-operative movement, but on the character of representation achieved by the party of the movement. Of particular relevance here are debates around the reconfiguration of the relationship between representatives and represented, connected with a recent turn in representation theory proposing, first, to understand ‘representation as relationship’ (Saward, 2008) where the represented are not fixed entities determined by identity and borders, but rather fluid beings called into existence by representative claims.

This direction for the understanding of representation in democratic politics transcends the limits of traditional principal-agent approaches which see the ‘responsiveness’ of the representative as relating to fixed pre-existing constituencies, as ‘understanding’ what the demands of the represented are and as establishing bonds of authorisation and accountability to ensure that representatives act accordingly. This article now moves onto a discussion of the relationship between the Co-operative Party and the wider movement. This will be achieved through an assessment of the institutional linkages that underpin the relationship between movement and party, and the processes which govern them, with a specific focus on; (i) the party’s National Executive Committee, which is the party’s governing body and, (ii) the Co-operative group of MPs in the House of Commons.

National Executive Committee

The Co-operative Party’s National Executive Committee ‘sets the strategic direction for the Party and works closely with the General Secretary and staff to ensure that [it] meet [its] purpose and agreed plans. Party Policy is agreed by the NEC in consultation with members and Annual Conference’ (Co-operative Party, 2017).

The NEC is according to Michael Stephenson, the party’s General Secretary between 2007 and 2010, akin to a ‘company board’ (Stephenson, M, personal communication, December 1 2016) which oversees the ‘company’ of the Co-operative Party’s full-time staff. The composition for the NEC is as follows; there are ten regional and national representatives, who are elected by members of the Co-operative Party. Members themselves have to be members of a cooperative in order to join the party, which in theory contributes towards a higher degree of the type of representation detailed above. Additionally, there are two positions for the Chair and Vice Chair of the Co-operative Party parliamentary group (which is made up of Co-operative Sponsored Members of the House of Commons). There is also a Youth Representative - elected by young Co-operative Party members (under the age of 27) and ‘two National Executive Committee Members elected by and from affiliated Societies other than the Co-operative Group Ltd.’ (Co-operative Party, 2016). Additionally, there are two places reserved for representatives of the Co-operative Group Ltd. Finally, the “Chief Executive Officer of Co-operatives UK” (the sector’s umbrella body) may attend meetings, but is not afforded a vote. (Co-operative Party, 2017).

The membership criteria here is tightly drawn, with the aim of seemingly ensuring that the party’s governing body is made up of individuals with ongoing links to the movement it exists  to serve. The combination of the NEC’s pre-eminence within the party - although in practice day-to-day authority lies with the General Secretary and their staff - and its mandatory links into the cooperative movement mean that we can conclude that at the very least, the Co-operative Party’s NEC does not discourage grounded representation, in the sense that it at least provides the opportunity for the Co-operative Party to ‘give voice to’ the Co-operative Party.

Co-operative Party MPs

This discussion now moves on to the backgrounds of Co-operative Party representatives in order to ascertain the extent to which those parliamentarians are ‘grounded in’ and ‘give voice to’ the Co-operative Party. They will be assessed against two criteria; the degree of their involvement with the cooperative movement prior and subsequent to their selection as a Labour and Co-operative candidate based on; (i) available biographic information; and (ii) of cooperative and mutualist discourse (Birchall, 2011) utilised in parliamentary debates.

The aim of the research here was to examine the extent to which those MPs in the sample have used performed one of the following in a Parliamentary setting; invocation of cooperative enterprises specifically or the cooperative movement more generally, and of the political ideology of mutualism - which has been highlighted and pursued in a number of Co-operative Party policy documents and has achieved somewhat mainstream status within philosophical debates concerning the centre left (Birchall, 2011; McTernan, 2011). It also includes their experience in the wider cooperative movement prior to their selection as a Co-operative Party MP, in order to apply the criteria of ‘groundedness’ detailed above.

In this small sample, it is impossible to draw firm conclusions, but we can begin to see some patterns emerge; most of the Co-operative Party MPs had some kind of ‘grounding’ in the cooperative movement prior to their selection as a Labour/Co-operative candidate; for example Andy Love, the former MP for Edmonton, was a former employee of the Co-operative Retail Society, while Steve Reed (who represents Croydon North) led the UK’s first ‘Co-operative Council’, which sought to use the mutual model across a range of council service areas.

Additionally, all of the Co-operative Party parliamentarians in question used their position in parliament to mention the Co-operative Party, mutualism, and individual cooperative enterprises, to varying extents. Additionally, it shows that some of the Co-operative Party parliamentarians somewhat doggedly sought to promote knowledge of and understanding of the Co-operative Party and the movement it represented in parliamentary debates, repeatedly highlighting their status as a Co-operative MPs.

Conclusion

From a limited set of data, we can draw two early conclusions regarding the the Co-operative Party. Firstly, the party National Executive Committee is structured in such a way as to encourage ‘groundedness’ between the Co-operative Party and the cooperative movement. Secondly, the party has shown itself capable of identifying and recruiting individuals to the Westminster Co-operative Party group which share the characteristics of authentic cooperators who have shown themselves to be motivated to ‘give voice’ to the cooperative movement. Finally, the Co-operative Party MPs that form the basis of this study have used their platform in parliament to ‘give voice’ to the cooperative movement at times. However, more research will be required before firm conclusions can be made in this regard. 

Bibliography

 

 

Feedback

Edit this page