"The Parliamentary System as it is conceived in this country precludes the possibility of 'intra-party democracy.'" (R.T. McKenzie) Discuss.

The concept of "intra-party democracy" refers to a situation where a political party is entirely democratic and exists as a means of expression for a mass organisation of a particular movement. Its policies are decided by its membership, and it is subordinate to them; if elected it is bound by the policy decisions reached at annual conference. This structure is in contrast to the Parliamentary wing of a party being master of the mass organisation itself.
This rationale behind the organisation of a party was one of the founding principles of the Labour party. The origins of the Labour party, growing as it did out of an alliance between various trade unions and other socialist organisations, as well as the Methodist church, meant that it inherited the essentially democratic structure prevalent in those trade unions and the Church. Surprisingly, this played a more influential role in the attempts to introduce democracy within the party than any premeditated ideas as to how a political party should be internally arranged.
The Conservative party, in contrast, has never claimed to exercise such a policy, and it was always the belief in the parliamentary Conservative party that the National Union of Conservative and Unionist Associations (NUCUA - the mass organisation of grassroots membership) and the Conservative Central Office (CCO) would and should be subordinate to the parliamentary party. The role of the latter, as party Secretariat, would be to assist and advise the parliamentary party, but there was never any question of either body "usurping the functions of party leadership" as one Tory chairman in the late 19th century put it. Indeed, these two bodies were only created in 1867 as a response to the Second Reform Act that extended the vote to many working-class men, and the passage of legislation that restricted the amount of money that could be spent on campaigns. As a result, the Tory party needed to broaden its electoral horizons, and this meant it could no longer remain an exclusive group of wealthy peers and expect to win elections.
The fact that the Conservative party did not believe in intra-party democracy meant that in theory at least the leader exercised a great deal of power, enough almost to suggest his a totalitarian regime. Once he was elected to the party leadership, he did not have to face periodic re-election. He was not obliged to report formally to the NUCUA or the parliamentary party. He could choose his ministerial team both when in power and in opposition. The sole responsibility for formulating and setting policy and directing the electoral programme rested with him. The resolutions made at the party conference were referred to him, but were in no way binding on him, and he was able to treat the CCO as his own personal machine by appointing principle officers to it. By doing so he had control over important aspects of propaganda, research, and finance.
By contrast, the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP), and the leader himself, were much more constrained and subject to checks in their actions by The Labour Party, the name given to the mass organisation of (initially) working-class citizens. Indeed, before 1922, there was no official leader; the head of the PLP was no more than a spokesman for his parliamentary colleagues. The PLP was a mouthpiece for policies determined by the mass organisation at the annual party conference, which was supposed to ensure that the whole party had a regular opportunity to meet to debate and make policy for the PLP. The annual conference retained control over the PLP and other extra-parliamentary Labour organisations such as the National Executive Committee (NEC) and Labour Head Office. This organisational structure would ensure democracy pervaded the whole Labour movement. However, the dependency of the PLP and NEC on the support of the block-vote of the trade unions at the party conference undermined this democratic nature early on in the party's history, given that the unions could assure support for the PLP leadership in opposition to the party delegates' views.
When McKenzie wrote his famous article "Power in British political parties" in 1955, he attempted to show not only that the concept of intra-party democracy did not, indeed, could not, exist given the political system in place in Britain, but also that the distribution of power within the Labour and Conservative movements was broadly similar, and that the idea of a parliamentary body being subordinate to an extra-parliamentary, unrepresentative mass body could not exist in practice.
McKenzie was Canadian, and came to London for the first time while serving in the Canadian Army. After the war, he studied for a doctorate at LSE; this doctorate formed the base for his "British Political Parties," a standard work for students of 20th century British politics. His judgements became widely accepted, but he was better known to the public for his election night reporting, complete with the original swingometer. His many appearances on television and radio reinforced his reputation as one of the foremost political scientists of his day.
McKenzie's argument is based on the fact that the strength of the British parliamentary system is bound with the independence of Parliament, which is the basis of the entire party system. When in government, the parliamentary branch of a party forms a Cabinet and must run the country. They must take the decisions that they believe to be compatible with the best interests of the country. As a result, decisions made at the party conference that they are technically required to carry out may either become inappropriate or irrelevant to the process of effective government. The party cannot simply come to power and expect to be able to implement a set list of particular actions that may be up to a year old. The chain of responsibility to a party in government runs from Cabinet to Parliament to electorate. It cannot be made to run from Cabinet to Parliamentary Party to annual party conference to mass membership of the party. Thus the government, or more precisely, the Cabinet, cannot be responsible to the party conference once in power.
Given the parliamentary voting system, the mass organisation has little impact on the party in power, and the government relies on the support of the MPs above the wider party. As a result, in order to guarantee the passage of a particular piece of legislation, they are more likely to make concessions to individual MPs than to the extra-parliamentary party, which becomes nothing more than a particularly specialised pressure group.
Despite the fact that the PLP is supposed to be guided by policies determined by the annual conference, it has now become acceptable for the PLP to ignore decisions taken by the conference. This first happened in 1960 when the conference passed resolutions contrary to the positions advocated by the PLP and the NEC, calling for unilateral nuclear disarmament, opposition to American nuclear missiles at British bases, and rejection of NATO defence policy. As a result, the PLP had to decide whether to ignore the resolutions and let the theory of intra-party democracy collapse, or advocate policies that were not only in their view bad for Britain, but also the complete opposite of the ones they had advanced when they were elected twelve months previously. It turned out that most MPs took the latter option, and indeed, such was their opposition to the conference decisions, that the 1961 conference succeeded in reversing the previous year's decisions.
As a result of this it can be concluded that the mass organisation, although important in consulting with and encouraging the parliamentary party, cannot have complete control over it. The mass organisations, since they are voluntary vote-getters, have the right to be a part of the policy-formulation process, but not to control or direct the actions of the parliamentary party. A Labour Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition must be able to communicate directly with the voters, and not be burdened with responsibilities to some unrepresentative body. Brand makes another point in his discussion of power in parties, namely that intra-party democracy of the nature that I have been discussing is not necessary for a party to call itself democratic. A party is democratic if it abides by the laws and conventions that govern the operation of the democratic system in a country. To this extent, both the Conservative and Labour parties can be said to be democratic in this sense.
It is thus obvious that intra-party democracy doesn't exist; have we shown this to be due to the parliamentary system in this country? I believe so, although I do not believe this is the whole answer. Certainly the reliance on the support of MPs means that the mass organisation cannot have a direct influence within Parliament; this is a feature of the system that precludes intra-party democracy. As well as this the chain of responsibility from government to electorate cannot be modified or extended to include the extra-parliamentary party. However, the need for flexibility in government means that they cannot merely be slaves to a party that may be radical, unrepresentative of the majority of the public, and uneducated in what constitutes a workable policy for government. This is not directly due to the system, and thus there are several different factors that contribute to the unworkable nature of intra-party democracy. In this case, McKenzie's conclusion is at least partly correct, and regarding the structure of power within the parties, events partly reinforced his work; the 1960 Labour Party conference I have already referred to being an example of how the PLP demonstrated its ability to distance itself from the party grassroots. However, the emergence of a strong third party may serve to undermine his interpretation of a pure two-party system.