I was really pleased to see Paul Cotterill write a reply to my recent article, Selective Memory, on the increased time and financial costs recently added by the organisational subcommittee of the NEC to Labour’s selections process.
In the piece I argue that Labour should establish two principles when developing its selection process. First, that the part of the process with the membership list, where aspiring candidates need to go door-to-door, fit into statutory holiday entitlement, time off for working people so hard won by the trade unions and the Labour government. Second, that aspiring candidates shouldn’t have to incur costs before being guaranteed a place on the shortlist and the right to make a speech to the whole membership.
I am sure there are many points that Cotterill and I agree on, not least the need for more working-class and fewer ‘professional politicians’ to be selected. In the same vein, I wish to reply to the three main criticisms the author makes of my piece.
First, I am surprised we don’t agree that, whatever process we put in place, Labour’s structures will always be more accessible to full-time politicos, whether they be researchers and advisers, thinktankers or employed trade union officials. The ‘we’ve got too many special advisers’ line has fallen into general parlance in the party. In addition, the nine ‘trade unionists’ that got elected to parliament in 2010 were all full-time officials prior to being selected or elected, not senior lay reps. We must act to level the playing field for working people, which means removing time and financial barriers.
Second, the point is well made about the cost of leaflets. ‘Glossies’ are not the important part of the process, the message is. The problem with solution of using riso machines that Cotterill suggests is that before you are the Labour candidate you cannot use Labour party resources for your selection campaign. This bars most candidates from access to cheap leaflets. This is something the party could explore changing as we move toward. Maybe there is a joint Progress-Though Cowards Flinch campaign in that one.
The idea that most working-class candidates ‘will have some [financial] support from a union branch’ ignores the fact that in most unions the branches no longer hold political funds and that Len McCluskey himself has said it’s not working class candidates in particular that his union (and others) are interested in supporting, but those who ‘share core trade union values and will support policies that will benefit Unite’s 1.5 million members – irrespective of an individual’s class’. This also means that different branches of the same union cannot support different candidates and ignores that in vast swaths of the country the ‘big three’ unions are all supporting the same candidate.
Finally, what Cotterill calls the ‘most important flaw in [my] argument’ is that branch nominations have been reintroduced in a big way is ‘so that candidates get a chance, in more informal settings, to discuss local issues with members’. If only this were true. Aspiring candidates are actively excluded from the Labour party branch meetings where the nomination takes place and in most unions the nominations process is done by regional or national committees, on behalf of the branches affiliated to the CLP in question. These regional and national committees normally take place (not unreasonably) well in advance of the selections process itself so are by definition not open to all candidates. Clearly Cotterill and I both wish to give candidates the chance to engage with levy-payers in the area coterminous with the constituency’s borders. The regional and national committees mentioned above don’t seem to agree.
In the Labour party we can surely agree that barriers of time and cost should be limited where possible, because access is as an important principle to democracy as the one member, one vote ballot.
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Richard Angell is deputy director of Progress. For more on selections, see here.
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I just read Paul’s piece, and I can’t believe it was written by someone with any experience of party selections. Im concerned that he doesnt seem to care that competing in selection processes is – undeniably – timely and expensive, and am even more concerned with his assertion that “the job of an MP is really just not that difficult.” Why would he not want the best for our party? Does he not care about Labour winning election?…
Neither writer has addressed the issue of candidates regularly being imposed on constitencies by the NEC – generally candidates with a large national profile, and usually belonging to the centre right faction of the party. Progress has in the past advocated open primaries – mainly because it thinks it can win this way. You can be sure that if it didn’t, Progress would be advocating an electoral college instead
What about primaries. Part of the problem is that in some areas there are unrepresentative CLPs and in order to get the right candidate it would be good to see whether they could gain support from the future constituents.
An example of the failings of the current system is evident in the Bristol South selection. Long before the selection process started one of the candidates was promoting the fact that they had the support of a number of unions.
How can it be fair for a union to back a candidate without knowing who the other candidates may be? It prompted one Unite member to tweet me “As a member of Unite it would have been really nice to have been consulted about my union’s so-called nomination. plus ca change”
If the unions don’t want to be accused of organising a stitch up in Labour selections perhaps it would be a good idea not to organise a stitch up?
I think Reni is completely right. As a Labour activist in a target London seat which is about to select a candidate (Battersea), I think a primary would have been a fantastic way of engaging local residents. The current Tory MP was selected in a primary back in 2006 which energised her campaign and built her reputation in the area. Although I’m confident that whoever our candidate is will be in a strong position as a result of the selection process, there’s no doubt in my mind that a primary would have given potential candidates the chance to meet people who would never otherwise engage with party selection processes. Even before you get to the issue of avoiding stitch-ups, I can’t see any insurmountable reasons why primaries wouldn’t be best for basic engagement with the constituency that prospective candidates seek to represent.
We need mature politicians
who have had considerable life experience and real jobs outside the political,
Westminster bubble. Bright young things are promoted before their years and
often know little about the things they are in charge of other than reading it
out of a book. One shadow health minister, for example, has never even worked
in the public sector, let alone the Health Service. “Think tanks, NGOs, etc,” stuffed
with bright young things, are the breeding ground for the career politicians.
Surely, the 50 plus with considerable life experience, especially of the field
they are working in, would be in a better position to advise and recommend
policy. Many ordinary people in my age group have little confidence in our young,
career politicians who are gutless, bland and frightened of saying or doing
anything that might harm their progress up the greasy pole.
I remember an MSP selection where all of the union votes were tied up by a full-time official of the then GMB. She had been employed by the union since an NUS Scotland job, and had been neither a municipal or general worker. Presumably she had a few shifts as a boilermaker behind her. She was selected over senior councillors and indeed a former Vice-Convenor of the SCottish Constitutional Convention (who had not been shortlisted despite nomination from the Women’s Section). All of the substantive arguments in these articles are irrelevant while such abuses are commonplace.
Unions could also help themselves by putting forward better people – the one in question lost a safe seat in 2011, and would have lost in 2007 if the SNP vote had not been cut into by Greens.