Labour has used constitutional reform in order to come to power and therefore enhance the powers of the Prime Minister. After using constitutional reform, the “New Labour” party is more appealing to the electorate; as support for old socialist views has declined in recent years. Labour had wanted to appeal to the middle classes and Liberal democrat supporters for more support and as Prime Minister Blair can now enjoy more dominance over his party and is able to choose his own cabinet.
Public support gives the Prime Minister a mandate and this is shown recently by Blair with his use of referendums to discover public opinions in order to produce popular policies. With more support the party looks united and the dominance of the leader increases, as they are then the leader of a more united and successful party.
In the election of leaders, we can see the extent to which leaders are given a mandate to rule the party. In the Conservative party, it is less likely that the leader has full support of their party as it is only MPs who vote for the leader until it reaches a final two candidates and it is only then when ordinary members get a say in who they want to be the leader and by this time the person they wanted may have been voted out of the election.
Whereas, Labour members have a more democratic election of their leader where all members get a say in who becomes the next leader and therefore giving the leader more right to rule the party. Michael Howard of the Conservative party just emerged and wasn’t elected so his right to rule can be questioned whereas Blair can dominate his party more due to his higher level of party support.
A party can affect a leaders power if they aren’t united. A leader must have full support of their party in order to have power by a majority in Parliament. We can see a leader’s dominance over their party by their majority in parliament votes as they can be seen as very dominant if they can withstand a lot of rebellions like Blair can due to his large majority. Because rebellions have little effect on Blair due to his, majority, he can dominate his party because MPs know they will have little effect if they do rebel. When the Major government was in power, we could see that major had less dominance over his party as he had more pressure to please his MPs because rebellions would affect him worse than they would Blair.
Leaders can dominate their party with the use of party whips, who maintain discipline through threats and bribes. This dissuades MPs from rebellions as they risk losing job perks.
In some cases backbench MPs have a say over leadership as the leader can tend to change policy to prevent rebellions for example when Wilson backed down from Trade Union reform because the chief whip had said he couldn’t get it through the parliamentary party.
Conferences have some effect on the power of the leadership as the leader’s decisions can be affected by the strong expressions of opinion that can influence them e.g. Conservative leader persuaded to introduce Poll tax immediately rather that phase it in gradually. However theses conferences have also been seen a simply rallies of supporters meeting in a friendly social environment giving free publicity to the leader and the leader still dominates the party as they can ignore the views expressed in the conferences if they disagree with them.
Labour leaders have not had control over party organisation as the party’s official governing body is not the cabinet or the shadow cabinet or even the Parliamentary Labour Party but it is the National executive Committee which had been dominated by Trade Unions and Left wingers who were hostile to the leadership. The National Executive Committee has to approve the party manifesto as well as controlling the key appointments like that of the General Secretary. However there have been reforms to increase the leader’s power as key institutions now include the Joint Policy Committee, which is chaired by the Prime Minister who can not appoint his own Cabinet Secretary and directs the National Forum which gives him more support so therefore more dominance of his party.
An increase in public relations and spin doctors to manipulate the public have increased the dominance of the party leaders especially in the role of Prime minister and this role has almost become oligarchic.
Leaders have been seen to be decentralising their powers to ordinary members through “Plebiscitary democracy” where the dominance of the leader is increased because ordinary members are more likely to endorse the policies of leader than the activists are.
In policy making, Conservative leaders have total dominance but do have to listen to other important voices to make sure that they are making the right decisions; theses people includes party elite, parliamentarians and grass roots members.
The Labour party policy is made by party members in a vote at the annual national conference and is then followed by the leadership. “Partnership in Power” was a new document adapted where policy is made after two years discussion and then policies are passed on to the National Executive Committee and then discussed at the party conference. Labour leaders have much less dominance over policy making than their Conservative counterparts.
In selecting Parliamentary Candidates, leaders from both parties have little dominance over these decisions. In the Labour party this is done by a system of One-member-one-vote and then lists are presented to the local parties who then shortlist and then the National Executive Committee approve elected candidates. For the Conservatives, Parliamentary Candidates are elected by formal vetting through interviews and a Selection board followed by application to individual constituency parties and they party elites decide who to put forward to a general meeting where a short listed candidate is chosen.
Due to the increase in internal democracy through allowing ordinary members to have a say in thing, it seems that the leaders have become less dominant of their parties but however; this “Plebiscitary democracy” has actually increased the dominance of the leader as it is likely that the ordinary members are more likely to support the leader than activists due to media focus presenting leaders in an attractive way for example Tony Blair viewed as a Christian family man.
Dominance can be dominated by external factors like publicity and electoral success, as with little public support, leaders are unlikely to maintain full party support, as they seem less valuable.
Overall, the Conservative leaders have more dominance over their parties than Labour leaders as they have dominance over important areas like policy making even though they seen to have less mandate as they can emerge without proper support from party members and can be challenge more easily.
There is an existence of Oligarchy in the current system but the leaders still have to ensure that they please a certain number of people in order to retain their dominant role e.g. Thatcher who had a large amount of member support but was challenged by other MPs and was successfully removed from power; losing her role altogether.
