The shadow cabinet should be elected, not selected

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Today the PLP have a real choice to make that could prove just as important for the party as the leadership election. As they vote on proposals to alter the way in which the shadow cabinet is chosen, the PLP will ultimately be choosing between a democratic and plural system, or increased levels of top-down patronage within the party. For the party to flourish in opposition, the PLP should choose the former.

The current system, as it stands, allows the parliamentary party to exert pressure upon the front bench, and carry out an overseight role that allows frontbenchers who fall foul of the PLP to be replaced by their colleagues. The party leadership has gone through the process of realising that too much of New Labour was “top-down”, and has grasped the desire for internal democracy. Surely there is no sense in increasing democracy within the party, as all leadership candidates have promised, whilst removing it from a section of the party who should be the most actively involved.

Those who would favour a system based on patronage from the leader betray the desire within the party to embrace pluralism, to reach out to all sections of the movement and build on the best of all of our talents. Having a cabinet selected by the party leader is effectively playing “double or quits” with the leadership race. Want the issues that you care about to be represented in the shadow cabinet? Then you had better hope your candidate wins the leadership contest, or those who support your candidate might not be chosen by the new leader.

The issue of female representation in the cabinet is also being voted on today. It seems unlikely that the 50% target initially proposed by Harriet Harman will prevail, which is a shame. The targets which we give ourselves for breaking barriers to political participation should, be neccessity, be difficult to reach, even painful. Operating a sliding scale, which would rise to 50% during this parliament, is also a mistake, as it runs the risk of removing men from shadow cabinet posts to be replaced by women at arbitrary stages, purely on the basis of gender. The target should be high, and it should be constant throughout this parliament.

There are only a few hours left in the vote now, which is scheduled to finish at 5pm tonight. What seems likely at this stage is that some compromise will be chosen, both on electing the shadow cabinet and the percentage of women that shadow cabinet contains. That would be a shame for the party, after it has moved on so impressively in recent months from election defeat.

Of course it means that we’ll see a few “big beasts” elected who the leadership might have prefered to ignore. We’ll likely see more women in the shadow cabinet than before. But it won’t be as plural, as representative and as democratic as it could have been – that’s disapointing for the party, because democracy and women’s representation are the kind of issues that we shouldn’t be willing to compromise on.