Barnsley Central’s selection of former paratrooper Dan Jarvis as its by-election candidate stands out for its choice of a new face with a different background. But the National Executive Committee’s new rules look set to restrict what can already be an opaque system.
The current assault course for wannabe MPs constitutes a 12-week process starting with self-nomination and access to membership lists, knocking frantically on doors and telephoning members. Four weeks in, a members’ event is organised and six weeks in branch meetings nominate up to three candidates. Anyone winning nominations in branches with a membership totalling more than half the CLP’s membership is shortlisted. The remainder are selected from those nominated by ward branches, unions and affiliates, and CLP equalities groups like Young Labour, women or BAME by members of the CLP’s General Committee. The prospective MP is finally decided by AV at an all-members’ hustings meeting.
The new ‘trial’ process, however, differs in three mains ways. First, shortlisting now only takes place by interview with a ‘selections committee’ elected by the CLP’s Executive Committee after longlisting CVs ‘blind’. Second, candidates only receive the membership list when shortlisted, giving them just four weeks to canvass the party membership to pitch their ideas and vision for the future. Finally, candidates are limited to two leaflets and an ‘out-card’, which keeps costs down but hampers innovation in communications. A spending limit would be more appropriate.
All this makes it easier for those with a base in the constituency already – not something easy to object to, but not very fair on those born outside the heartlands. The ‘selections committee’ itself is wide open for stitching up the result. One or two strong-willed local members can, either on behalf of potential candidates or just with an axe to grind, skew the whole outcome of the selection. The secrecy of these occasions makes our systems more exclusive not less.
If we are honest, GC members are already a select elite in the Labour party of those most willing to give up their evenings to discuss the minutes of the last meeting in a windy community hall. This is even more the case with the EC – those prepared to sacrifice even more of their spare time to meetings – and takes you even further from the membership at large, never mind the electorate.
With politics moving inexorably towards greater transparency and openness, this is a move in the wrong direction. The Tories have pioneered primaries while the Labour leadership race saw innovations with local postal and online primaries in Bassetlaw and Edinburgh East. If Labour wishes to involve more, not fewer, people in its politics, this is not the way to go about it.
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UPDATE: On 14 May 2013 the NEC org sub changed the maximum from 13 to eight weeks in a move that will make selections more accessible to all, especially to working people.
The proposed system is far too open to manipulation. It’s difficult to see how an executive committee won’t have at least pre-determined views of the type of candidate they wish to see, if not the candidate themselves. The membership of that committee may have been slowly packed and worked upon by particular candidate(s) to the exclusion of very good candidates, either from outside the area or who’ve channeled their efforts in other ways. It’s wrong to assume that the EC is necessarily representative of the membership simply because they devote time to that body or that what they would look for in a candidate would be shared by the wider membership. Many members go into the selection process with a firm view. Any chance a candidate has to challenge that view is too limited in 4 weeks, especially with the numbers of postal votes cast. Very able candidates may not get a proper hearing. The best selections can see an outsider come through with effort and exposure to the membership because they are a genuinely compelling candidate. It’s also very important for a candidate to be able to spare the time to have proper discussions with individual members who wish to engage with them on the issues, rather than dealing with people peremptorily – and if the issues are to come to the fore they must be given time.
“All this makes it easier for those with a base in the constituency already – not something easy to object to, but not very fair on those born outside the heartlands.” Herein lies the whole problem. What is an MP if not an elected representative of a community? All MPs should be from the area they represent. That’s not to say they need to have been born there, but at least lived there for long enough to know what the area is about. Otherwise all you get is the professional classes fanning out from London and using their friends and the party machine to control politics. “This is even more the case with the EC – those prepared to sacrifice even more of their spare time to meetings – and takes you even further from the membership at large, never mind the electorate.” Some people join the Labour party, get involved, go to meetings, try and do something for the good of the community. Some other people, mainly the “membership at large” as you call them, join the party, do nothing, go to no meetings, don’t canvass, campaign, door knock or deliver. ANd yet somehow these inactive members should have more of a say in who gets to represent the area than those who actually care enough to do something?