It has become rather easy to be elected as a Labour councillor in Rotherham over the last two decades.
First you join the Labour party. Then you turn up at a sparsely attended branch meeting. Then you wait for a councillor to retire. It might be a long wait, but the competition is not great. Few selections are contested. Until the recent elections, with nearly every councillor being Labour, there have been plenty of opportunities for those prepared to hang around.
Membership is low. In fact, it is very low. The Labour party demands £45.50 for the privilege of attending these meetings, where most of the attendees are councillors. Labour has aligned itself to the Waitrose end of the market rather than Netto.
It was not always thus. Membership fees used to be very low. Attendance was never huge, but people joined, especially those encouraged by their union, which in Rotherham was the Iron and Steel Union and the ethos of councillors was very different.
Nobody was paid to be a councillor – it was done entirely for the duty of public service and the honour of representing. Councillors were well known and well respected. You can hear the pride in the voices of my constituents when they tell me of their late grandfather, aunt or uncle who served as a local councillor or alderman. These people held their heads high in their communities.
I can recall my own father repeatedly attempting to return a wicker tray, made by a blind charity. Given to him by a woman he had helped. Pleading with her to take back the gift which she had left as a thank you for his councillor assistance.
‘I cannot accept any reward for my duties’, he kept telling her. Today people argue about which committee position is paid more than which other. Community activists who never realised they would be paid suddenly transform into protestors over poverty pay and allowances.
When my father died, as the family is always happy to recount, people of his ward lined the streets for his funeral. That is just 33 years ago.
Somehow I do not see such respect emerging in the Rotherham area in the near future.
This outrageous scandal and Labour’s role in it provides the opportunity for a clean sweep.
Every Rotherham Labour councillor selection should be opened out into a community selection, with any Labour voter wishing to stand being approved by the national party and be put to a primary ballot of Labour voters – although new blood will also emerge. Let the people decide who best should represent them, bringing in new faces, endorsed by the public and deliberately tear up the old-style Tammany Hall selection procedures that have helped put the Rotherham Labour party where it is today.
Rotherham can then stand out as an example of what Labour needs to do across the country: Trust the people, sideline elitism. Out of the dingy halls and onto the streets. Time is pressing.
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John Mann is member of parliament for Bassetlaw
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I’d hate to think that this article was basically exploiting the situation with Rotherham Council at the moment.
While I agree with your idea that registered Labour voters should be able to pick candidates your early contention that it’s “easy” to be picked as a Labour councillor in Rotherham is flatly rubbish. In fact it contradicts what you say later – that there is a culture of elitism in the selection process and in the party overall.
As a branch secretary the process for being selected in Rotherham (until it was very recently taken over by the national party following the Jay Report) is one of the most rigorous I’ve ever known in 25 years of being involved in the party. Not only is there a panel interview before a candidate can even stand before a branch to be considered; the candidate has to agree to a campaign contract and commit to extensive “on the street” campaigning activity. Indeed it’s that kind of activity that stopped last May’s local election results being even worse than they were here.
Good. The vetting and the workload commitments should be applied everywhere.
But I’m wondering how Shaun Wright made the shortlist for PCC, when he had such serious questions to answer?
Its still a closed society in most areas though, no person in a position of power really wants open primaries because they threaten their safe position.