Equality of opportunity must be extended to the political sphere

By James Mills

“A nation is not civilized because a handful of its members are successful…”.

Although R.H. Tawney is referring to economic inequality, the sentiment can be applied to a political party and a democracy if it is not a matter of ability but finance that determines success. This may be why 21st century Fabians like Sunder Katwala view the Labour Diversity Fund positively.

During the last economic crisis on the same magnitude as the one we have experienced, the Labour Party in 1929 had in its ranks 287 MPs, fifty of whom who had been miners. The Liberals and Conservatives had and about one hundred lawyers and almost another hundred company directors in their ranks. The clear contrast between the two parties was very apparent.

Now jump to the parliament of 2010 and only 4% of all MPs have come from a manual working background; in the Labour Party, around 80% of the 258 MPs are drawn from traditional professional occupations with only 9% from manual working backgrounds.

This is obvious to everyone outside Westminster, as a BBC poll in the last parliament found that almost 60% of white working-class people felt unrepresented by MPs. Labour then at the last election saw our share of the lower income D/E demographic voters fall by a third to 40%. There are many shibboleths in our party but one in particular has been how to make our MPs at parliament better reflect the electorate in a modern era.

There are those who say we should never give up on those from the A/B socio-demographic, which is true, but when it comes to representation they are clearly more than fairly represented at Westminster than any other socio-economic group. Over a third of all MPs went to a fee paying school; the national average is only 7%.

The real “lion in the path” of standing for parliament is the inflated cost of candidacy, which in our own party can cost thousands of pounds. We should always be the party of aspiration, and that aspiration should always be that no matter your background, no economic barriers shall stand in the way of representing people at every level. Ordinary working people should be as reflected in our Parliamentary Party as much as they are in our CLPs, and more importantly in our communities.

To be truly radical the party must be at the vanguard in the equality of representation be it through devolution or in this case by expanding opportunity of candidacy to unrepresented groups at parliament.

It is on this basis alone that the campaign for a Labour Diversity Fund is based. It is a fund that local political parties can draw upon to develop talented individuals from under-represented groups and provide bursaries to individuals who would be unable to sustain the costs of candidacy.

If you would like to sign our petition or find out more about our campaign please visit the website.