We need to start trusting our members

By Grace Fletcher-Hackwood / @msgracefh

Over the weekend I was intrigued to read this post by Simon Buckley, who is not only a cracking blogger but a friend from this year’s Broadheath Labour campaign, former owner of the first place I ever bought vintage clothes in Manchester, and now, as the post explains, a Labour candidate for next year’s local elections.

Simon’s blow-by-blow account of his unopposed selection meeting was good to read, and not only because the guy has a neat turn of phrase. Blogging about a meeting – particularly a selection meeting – would be taboo for many local parties. In one of my former branches I turned up to a meeting to find my own blog listed as an agenda item. This was back when I kept my personal blog updated reasonably often (if you’ve looked at it recently, I know, I know, it’s on my to-do list, right after I put up curtain rails and learn to drive), and had followed up the previous meeting with a blog about the meeting: simply that I’d attended and met our new candidate, now a councillor. I was duly berated, between the campaign report and AOB, for making the details of a private branch meeting available on the internet.

Simon’s article is much more revealing. The comments on his post express concern that alcohol was so openly around at the meeting, as well as sparking a small argument about the correct procedure for an inquorate selection.

The way these meetings are done varies widely depending on where you are – and what’s at stake. Last Monday, after twenty-one straight hours of packing, cleaning, loading and unloading boxes (and weathering the rage of my helpful friends when they realised that I was actually writing last week’s column instead of doing any of that), I went to St. Kentigern’s social club in Fallowfield to reselect one of my ward colleagues. As a sitting councillor he was the only shortlisted candidate and I hadn’t officially moved into the ward yet, so I didn’t have a vote: I turned up for support, an excuse to change out of my disgusting moving clothes, and a much-needed post-meeting cold Guinness.

A handful of branch members and an observer from the CLP assembled (in a separate room from the bar, which seems like a reasonable compromise on the alcohol thing); a member proposed that our candidate leave the room, without the need to make a speech, and that members vote by a show of hands and close the meeting. It was seconded; David was reselected before he’d got through the door; the whole thing was over in under a minute. Bada boom, bada bing.

It couldn’t have been more different from my selection in the same ward last year: we were trying to replace (well, replace is the wrong word) a retiring Labour councillor who had represented the ward for almost thirty years. I made a speech I’d been working on for weeks, answered questions about the ward and my campaigning experience, and spent a pretty tense ten minutes sitting with the other two candidates – both formidably talented women who are thankfully now Manchester councillors as well – before we found out the result. And that was after at least four weeks of campaigning: canvassing members, writing letters, constantly worrying about who was supporting who. Competition for Labour seats in Manchester is fierce, and I was lucky to have the advice of a few of the more experienced councillors while I went for it.

The problem is, not everyone has that support. Selection procedures, like so many other things, do vary so widely across the country that it’s difficult to advise potential candidates on what to expect – and what they shouldn’t expect. At a selection meeting in a different ward last year, I wondered aloud if we weren’t meant to ask the same questions to every candidate. Apparently not. But when another member asked one candidate a carefully phrased questions that nevertheless sounded distinctly like ‘do you have time to do this, since you’re a mother?’, I felt fairly sure a line had been crossed, but had no way to back it up. Either we need to start standardising the more basic aspects of selection meetings – and making clear to candidates exactly what they can say no to – or I’m gonna start advising every candidate to carry a copy of the rule book around at all times.

I think Simon’s post at the weekend highlighted a key challenge for the Labour Party, and one that I’ve been hoping Refounding Labour might try to address. It’s an issue of balance. We need to start trusting our members enough to let them blog or tweet about the odd meeting without tearing them a new one for the impudence – not to mention trusting them enough to shortlist and select the candidates they want, but that’s a whole other story – but at the same time, providing enough central control to make sure those same members are supported and treated fairly.

Oh, and if we can introduce a new rule that means Simon gets to keep his purple boots, it gets my vote.