Reorganizing the Organization

Abstract

Political parties cannot claim that they are ready to govern the country, yet simultaneously claim immunity from enquiry by the government or the electorate about how they govern themselves. In the United States and in many European countries the affairs of parties are subject to legislation, and thus to judicial arbitration when disputes arise within a party or between aggrieved voters and party officials. The arguments against such regulation in Britain are twofold. Judges conventionally avoid intervening in the ‘political’ part of government, and party officials distrust expensive and unpredictable courts. In addition politicians profess scepticism about the usefulness of Acts of Parliament — at least when they are intended to regulate the parties themselves.

We [the Conservatives] have recognised the need not so much for a constitution which seems tidy to the student of political history or logical in all respects, as for an organisation which is an educative political force and a machine for winning elections. Report of the Maxwell-Fyfe Committee on Party Organization

Compared with our opponents we [Labour] are still at the penny-farthing stage in a jet-propelled era, and our machine, at that, is getting rusty and deteriorating with age. The Wilson Report on Party Organization