The intrigue and treachery of local politics

By Sarah Hayward / @sarah_hayward

I don’t tend to blog too much about local by-elections, but the Green’s choice of candidate is so odd I had to put fingertips to keyboard.

The by-election, on September 15th, is a three way. In less than the last 4 years, Labour, Tory and Green councillors have represented the ward. The by-election will be hard fought and at this stage I wouldn’t put money on the outcome. If we work hard we can win, but we need to pull out all the stops. And it’s likely that the Tories and/or Greens can say the same.

Last night both Labour and the Greens selected their candidates. Ours was definitely a contested shortlist, and I’m looking forward to campaigning with the excellent Sally Gimson over the next few weeks. I gather that the Greens selection was contested too – via the helpful medium of local journo Richard Osley.

The background context to this is, that following a by-election in 2008 the Greens held all three councillors in the ward. Labour took two in last year’s all out council elections. Leaving the Maya De Souza, as the only Green in Camden and one of only two in London. On paper it’s got to be one of their highest priority wards in the capital. Meaning for aspiring Green councillors, or indeed people just trying to make a name for themselves within the Green Party – local council by-elections give you much more of a platform for profile raising in smaller parties – it would be an attractive prospect to be their by-election candidate. I can well see that their selection was contested.

So I was a little surprised to learn that last night the Greens selected a defector, Alexis Rowell to be their candidate. What’s odd, is not that Alexis is actually a defector (or indeed serial defector) – it happens regularly. But that he only left his immediate former party, the Lib Dems, on Monday night. Yes, Monday August 15th. He was selected to stand for the Greens on Tuesday August 16th.

Defections are always accompanied by bitterness and recriminations as well as horse trading – it really is one of the uglier bits of politics. Already this morning at least one local Lib Dem has been tweeting quotes from Alexis that seem to contradict his resignation letter to Nick Clegg (as if he’ll ever be aware of its existence) to try to undermine the credibility of the defection it’s self. This tactic is 101 on the list of things to do if you’re the spurned party in a defection. Expect more of it. But even in the murky world of defections this is an odd one. Usually there is some work to be done, and time to be served before the reward of a profile job, seat, position are handed over. The receiving party usually wants some test of future loyalty. Seemingly not for Alexis, and not for Camden’s Greens.

People who defect often command a temporarily powerful bargaining position with their new party. And Alexis has obviously manoeuvred effectively to get an immediate outcome for himself.

But what of the other candidates? Many of them will have put in serious amounts of shoe leather and leg muscle canvassing and delivering for the Greens. Some of them will have been loyal party members for years, putting in the grind for little reward. And here they are, confronted by someone, who only left his former party 24 hours before. He didn’t even publish his Lib Dem resignation letter until after he’d been selected for the Greens (if I was a suspicious person I might ask questions about that…).

This in a role that will enable an ambitious member to raise their profile across the party (in a way that local council by-elections don’t really do for Tory or Labour candidates). I can see there being some pretty annoyed local activists within Camden’s Greens this morning. Even if they will publicly protest that he won a vote fair and square. It will be interesting to see, over the next four and bit weeks, whether this has any impact on their local activists.

People who defect always get offered sweeteners & there’s always bargaining. But it’s the speed and effect of Alexis’ manoeuvres that have surprised me – I’d love to be a fly one the wall at their campaign meetings (that really does make me a geek, I know). Anyway enough about the Greens now I’m off to trying to win Labour a by-election.

If you want to help, get in touch with me via Twitter or contact our Labour office on 020 7586 6039, polling day is the September 15th and we’ll have canvassing, delivery and other campaigning activity every day until then.

This post was originally published at Sarah Hayward’s blog.