Why the selection secrecy?

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Those of you who are regular LabourList readers will know that over the past few months we’ve significantly increased our coverage of by-elections and the selection process that takes place to choose Labour’s candidate. That’s certainly the case with our coverage of the current selection process in Leicester South. In some seats the strength of the Labour vote means that the selection process is effectively the point at which the next MP for an area is chosen. For that reason, it’s important that the process is as transparent as possible. The process needs to be demystified, so that we can all be sure that whichever candidate emerges is the best person for the role, and that party members have had a fair chance to select the candidate best suited to the area and their values.

As Richard Angell has already pointed out this afternoon on LabourList, the new system for selecting candidates for general elections has its flaws, but at least under that system what goes on is at least controlled by the CLP.

For by-elections the system is by necessity somewhat different and truncated. Instead it presents the CLP with small shortlist of candidates chosen by an NEC panel rather than allowing the CLP a role in the full process. I’m not against this system. I understand the unique stresses and strains that are in play for a by-election. The chosen candidate needs to be both a safe pair of hands and squeaky clean. There can be no hostages to fortune. The short timescale that the party has adopted for recent by-elections makes many members uncomfortable, but it’s not in itself a bad thing if it allows a candidate to get campaigning sooner.

We like to think that LabourList’s coverage of these selections has opened up the process – at least a little – and allowed members from across the country and the party an opportunity to see how such selections work. You get to know the timetable, the candidates who are in the running and who gets shortlisted – as well as who Labour’s candidate is at the end of the process. Yet there’s a stage between candidates expressing an interest in the seat and the NEC interviews which is much less clear, and appears almost shrouded in secrecy. A “longlist” is drawn up, determining which candidates will be interviewed by the NEC panel, who in turn select a “shortlist” which can be voted on by the CLPs. The current version of the Labour Party rulebook provides no information on how this “longlist” is drawn up. The only section of the Labour Party 2011 rulebook that could provide some understanding is worryingly vague:

“Where a parliamentary by-election occurs in a constituency, the NEC shall take whatever action may be necessary to ensure that the vacancy is contested by a duly endorsed Labour candidate.”

That’s as clear as mud, but that would at least be manageable if the party was willing to provide a list of the names of who had been longlisted. That would allow party members to see who has fallen at the first hurdle, and who was eliminated from the process by the NEC panel. I’ve contacted the party repeatedly today trying to find out who is on the longlist. A Labour Party spokesperson told me:

“It is standard practice not to publish the names of applicants for by-election selections until the short list has been decided, at which point the short listed candidates’ names will be made public. The short listed candidates are to put to the Constituency Labour party, whose members decide on the final selection.”

The shortlisting interviews are tomorrow, yet the local party will only have the vaguest idea who comprises the list of candidates they are likely to be choosing from or how the final shortlist was arrived at.

If the party is really in favour of opening up and becoming less secretive about selections, then being open and clear about who is longlisted and shortlisted would be a (small) first step. There will be many more (larger) steps required in the coming years. Only then will we get the “new politics” we’ve all been promised.