How to frustrate all-women shortlists

By Tom Harris MP / @TomHarrisMP

Fascinating to watch the Conservative Party convulse over the prospect of all-women shortlists. Been there, seen it, done, it, bought the tee-shirt…

I admit that as a young man with parliamentary ambitions in the early 1990s, I was not a strong vocal supporter of all-women shortlists in the Labour Party. Even today, I’m resigned to their inevitability rather than enthusiastic about them.

Faced with the prospect of losing my chance even to put myself forward as a Labour candidate on account of the fact that I was born male, various male comrades and I started to discuss what could be done – within party rules, of course – to frustrate the party’s aim of imposing all-women shortlists.

The key, we concluded, was mandatory reselection. Once in each parliament, every Labour MP hoping to continue in parliament must be reselected to fight the subsequent election. It was suggested that, in a seat where the (usually male) MP was intending to retire, and where there might be a prospect of the national party imposing an all-women shortlist, then a “mock deselection” could be organised. Instead of announcing publicly that he intended to retire, the incumbent would instead announce he was planning to stand again. An aspiring young (male) candidate would then mount a challenge to the MP’s continuing candidacy, a challenge to which the incumbent would mysteriously succumb. No retirement, so no vacancy, so no imposition of all-women shortlist.

Genius, eh?

Undoubtedly, there will be those in the Conservative Party who will consider pursuing such cynical strategies. But they’re wasting their time. What did it for all-women shortlists in the 1990s was the fact that employment law made them illegal. That’s no longer the case.

I still don’t support all-women shortlists. On the other hand, I can’t see any alternative to increasing the numbers of women in the Commons. And there’s no doubt that, in Labour’s experience, whenever an all-women shortlist is announced, a much wider range of female candidates are encouraged to apply, secure in the knowledge that it won’t be a carve-up to the advantage of a favoured son.

I’ll be interested to see how this debate pans out in the Conservative Party.

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