MNDEBELE: Grassroots empowerment key to maintaining trust in leadership

We’re now more than three weeks out from a gruelling, hard-fought leadership race. Congratulations are in order for our new leader and her team, the other candidates and their teams, and, of course, LEOC, for running and participating in an energizing, highly secure, and earnest campaign to represent the party at its highest level. 

This, of course, has produced a slew of think-pieces aiming, invariably, to express support and loyalty towards our new team, slander a worryingly competent opponent from across the aisle, or predict the party’s likely direction under new management.

Thus far, however, one crucial priority has been underemphasized: organization. This priority will mean the difference between a vital, unified, and disciplined party machine capable of forming the next government, and a rudderless, erratic, and divided party incapable of generating morale, raising funds, or retaining the trust of its membership. 

Why do I say this? Let’s take a trip down memory lane… 

Toward the end of last year, the party’s fortunes were in free fall. Fundraising had fallen off a cliff. MLAs were a step away from open revolt. Executives and members (myself included) were writing articles and letters, conducting interviews, and calling for a change in leadership.

The party was shedding staffers left and right, and, rumour had it, was even having issues paying the ones who remained. And, naturally, an insurgent party was gathering momentum as the natural successor to the BCCP’s plainly dysfunctional operation. 

This largely occurred for two reasons: 

1. Members were suspicious that the party was being captured by agendas that did not represent their interests, their priorities, or their values, and acted accordingly.

2. Members had no reason to believe that the stated aims of the party’s leadership were genuine expressions of its aims, rather than fig leaves applied to cover a shift toward elite agendas disconnected from their interests. 

To be clear, I was and remain skeptical of both claims. However, I do believe they emerged from a very important truth, which is that the members did not feel, fundamentally, as if they had a voice or any effective control over the party, based on the fact that they watched decisions and messaging they did not support or endorse either being authorized or implemented without their input. And so, the prospect of a new leader, one who aligned with their priorities and would empower them, became the source of the party’s recent revival and recent participation. 

Now, getting a new leader trusted to remain faithful to conservative principles is an excellent first step. It not only means that the grassroots will trust that their priorities are reflected at the highest levels, but also that the party has made its desire for change as clear and undeniable as possible.

However, for new leadership to translate into sustainable confidence, the grassroots must feel engaged and empowered by each subsequent decision. This is not a matter of ideology, but direct participation; the only long term antidote to the suspicion of elite capture is meaningful grassroots power.

Therefore, the only way to eliminate the trust deficit is to provide the party grassroots with the means to organize, communicate, and realize its preferences within the party structure itself. Organization, therefore, is needed to carry our win forward and turn it into a sustainable machine. 

One critical priority should be the reactivation and rebuild of the party’s riding associations, with a direct, regional link between the party and the members. Local organization and direct, regular contact with other members and party staff are both key methods to foster a sense of ownership over one’s local corner of the party structure, while also ensuring that the party is accessible and associated with a familiar face.

Riding associations also secure and retain volunteers, raise money, find candidates, contribute to party policy, and maintain a firm, locally informed presence in critical ridings, all of which contribute to election readiness, maintain morale, and build the personal ties needed to stabilize party loyalty.

One excellent practice other parties have adopted is to host quarterly in-person gatherings with key local officers, where party finances, upcoming priorities, and any lingering concerns can be discussed at a higher level; this transparency will mitigate lingering perceptions that decisions are being made while ignoring local input, further rebuilding trust.

These should also be paired with firm guarantees that the party conference will be a grassroots affair in terms of policy outcomes and internal votes, because this ensures that members see a direct link between their preferences and the observed outcomes, an enormously important guarantor of member confidence in the party structure.

This was another reason the leadership race was important - the members do not feel the result was imposed on them against their preferences. I would err on the side of speed rather than caution in initiating these processes. 

Second, the party should set up a youth wing in order to directly channel the groundswell of youth interest in conservative politics. Crafting it effectively will take some precision, but it can be done. Young people, when properly motivated, are some of the most energetic, passionate, and capable volunteers a party can find, and in future, can become talented candidates, staffers, and operatives.

I have had the great pleasure of meeting many enthusiastic young Conservatives during the campaign and before it, whose contributions thus far have been a major asset to the movement. Extend a hand and help them get further involved, and the party’s future will be as secure as its present. 

Finally, a warning: the impulse to gate-keep should be viewed with caution. If these and other important steps are taken, the emergent culture will naturally filter out those with misaligned intentions while retaining those on the same page.

The most natural antidote to subversion, mistrust, and ideological incompatibility is to build strong personal relationships and retain an uncompromising emphasis on the core objectives and principles unifying the party — that is, the security of private property, the dynamism of commerce, safe streets, clean neighbourhoods, happy families, reverence for the past, and a firm commitment to building a better future for all British Columbians.

When we remain true to our principles (especially when those principles are actively translated into policy and messaging), those who do not align with them will either leave of their own accord, or will be identified quickly and routed elsewhere. Ensuring consistent activity toward the objectives most important to us will resolve this problem more effectively than no movement and formal testing - forward movement eliminates chaff faster than argument. 

If all the above steps are taken, the BC Conservative Party will be a disciplined machine capable of winning elections, the members will retain their confidence in the leader and the organization, and both morale and competence will work hand in hand. If the above steps are ignored, the party will become unruly and lose focus, the members will grow suspicious and conspiratorial, and the energies of the base will turn against the party, either destroying it from within or flocking to a new option. 

I remain optimistic.

Zak Mndebele is a Vancouver-based political consultant.