whatever happened to the Conservative Coops?

So, its party season again, and with a general election looming, every sector seems to be vying for attention with all the separate parties to become the solution that they’re each hoping to find that’ll help them to deliver on all their aspirations but won’t bankrupt the economy in the process...

One such sector which every party (at least in recently history) has embraced and talked up are co-ops: marrying social justice with economic independence and free market economies, they seem too good to be true and have often been cited in many a politician’s speech as to their ‘fab-ness’. Recently, co-op sector bodies such as Co-operativesUK have also started to more explicitly publish the ways in which co-ops can help each party deliver on their conference promises too.

But how far can we really hold faith in these political parties’ interest? Historically, government and political parties were so anti-coops that the movement formed its own political party to ensure that the sector wasn’t discriminated against in parliament! In more recent history, the Conservative party launched its own co-ops initiative. “The Conservative Co-operative Movement” (CCM) to capitalise on politicians’ interest in co-ops and to help keep this sector at the heart of parliament and to their policy and thinking. And they even set it up as a co-op society! (Intrigued, I even became a Member of this society, despite my father being a Labour councillor and a Co-op party Chair...)

But fast forward 4 years. In that time as a Member, I’ve had 3 general emails; 1 item of post (with postage underpaid on it); no notifications of Members’ meetings (or minutes from them); and I also spotted that they’ve been identifying themselves by another co-op society’s registration number in their stationary. Their website seems to have disappeared and I’ve not been able to get any response to messages I’ve sent to contact details I have.

What can I conclude from this?

In the absence of any response that may suggest otherwise, it seems like the CCM were an opportunistic political attempt to cash-in on the integrity and hard work of the co-op sector over the last few centuries. It’s obviously not understood what it means to be a co-operative by not acting as one. And it doesn’t seem to notice when it stops being able to deliver what it was set up to do.

Some might say the above analysis and conclusions are reflective of this wider political parties approach in general, but I couldn’t possibly comment...

When is the Big Society NOT the Big Society? (when it’s the co-op movement...)

The Big Society rumbles ever onwards, and there still seems to be widespread confusion about what it actually is. However, the Commission on Big Society have produced this handy definition, which has since been adopted by national sector bodies Locality and ACEVO (amongst others):

"A society in which power and responsibility have shifted: one in which, at every level in our national life, individuals and communities have more aspiration, power and capacity to take decisions and solve problems themselves, and where all of us take greater responsibility for ourselves, our communities and one another"

All sounds very noble, but it’s also a definition of the co-operative movement (you know, that things that’s also been rumbling along for a few centuries now!)

Let me illustrate by mapping the defining Co-operative values and principles against this definition:

"A society in which power and responsibility have shifted: one in which, at every level in our national life, individuals and communities have more aspiration, power and capacity to take decisions and solve problems themselves (self-help, democracy, equity), and where all of us take greater responsibility for ourselves (self-responsibility), our communities and one another (social responsibility, caring for others, concern for community)"

This apparent ‘hi-jacking’ of the co-op movement to support the Conservative Party’s ambitions doesn’t stop with defining it's Big Society. Remember when they also launched the Conservative Co-operative Movement, apparently oblivious to the pre-existence of the existing wider co-operative movement...?

So – when is the Big Society not the Big Society? When it’s a political attempt to claim credit for others hard work and efforts over the last few centuries... So is it time to reclaim the Big Society as the Co-operative Society yet?

the Conservative Co-operative Movement - hoisted by its own petard?

A few years back, there was something akin to outcry when the conservative party announced the launch of its ‘conservative co-operative movement’, mainly because we already have a co-operative movement that‘s been doing quite well for quite some time and already has good linkages into the political systems at Westminster.


Undaunted, the conservatives pressed on, launching their movement with a website and flagship publication “Nuts & Bolts – how to start a food co-op”, the author of which prefaces by saying that they have no technical expertise in how to set up co-ops... and the site doesn't list what co-op values are, nor link to the national federal body for the movement - Co-operativesUK


And this new movement has been subject to some criticism, not least because although espousing co-op values, it was a self-selecting body, accountable to no-one... But now, all that’s changed! It’s incorporating itself as a formal co-operative entity, with membership open to all (a snip at £10 a year!)


And that got me thinking... if enough people in the ‘main’/pre-existent co-operative movement became members, we could exercise member democracy, call an extraordinary meeting, and agree to dissolve the co-op, distributing its assets throughout the wider non-partisan co-op movement.




Anyone with me?