As with most conferences, so it has been in this last week at Brighton – it’s what is not said and what’s going on beneath the surface that is more interesting and relevant than what is said amd what is most visible. The Labour conference took a great deal further the underlying shifts in power that were already becoming apparent, away from the monolithic Blairite power imperium to a much more open social democratic party. Already the Government had been forced to drop the part-privatisation of the Royal Mail, to re-start Council housebuilding after a 12-year veto, and to tax the super-rich (albeit modestly). Now two crucial procedural changes have been achieved this week which together will once again turn Conference into a serious decision-making forum, not a leadership cult rally – essential for re-founding a democratic socialist Labour Party. One is that delegates will next year regain the right, which Gordon Brown took away two years ago, to submit motions which are debated and voted on on the floor of Conference, thereby securing once again the capacity to influence the policy of the leadership which is the essential condition of a democratic party. The second is that in future representatives to the party’s key National Policy Forum will be elected by all the membership (160,000), not restricted to a tiny number of Conference delegates (400). This is a much more open way of influencing policy, and should radicalise the motions coming before the NEC and Conference for debate.

But we need much more.

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