Labour’s NEC elections are too long

I hope LabourList readers will forgive me for indulging in a bit of a personal hobbyhorse in this week’s column.

As I am writing this it is 40 minutes since the polls closed at 5pm on Monday for the OMOV election to the constituency section of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC).

This is the third time I have been a candidate. Played three, won one (2010), lost one (2012), waiting to hear this year’s result at 12 noon on Wednesday.

My reason for writing is not to talk about the politics of this year’s contest – we can analyse that after the result is known.

It is to suggest that the process is far too lengthy. Nominations opened at the start of January, and whilst there was a slightly reduced level of activity during April and May when both candidates and Constituency Labour Parties were rightly focused on the local and Euro elections, this has been almost an eight month process.

It can’t be right that an internal party election for a voluntary role, however senior, should take a third of the length of time that the actual two year term of office is.

It is right that those of us who run for national office in the party should go through rigorous scrutiny but if we can pick future MPs in twelve weeks we should be able to do the same for NEC members. When we voted for a new party leader in 2010 we managed to complete the whole process, which was widely considered by the media to have taken too long, in just over four months between Gordon Brown resigning and the autumn conference, about half what this NEC ballot has taken. Given that process has a similar shape – nominations then an OMOV ballot – why couldn’t the NEC process have been run in the period between the 22 May elections and the conference?

Think of all the tweets people might have been spared reading!

I enjoy running in elections and it has been great to have the opportunity to set out my stall at length, but the process has been disproportionately long for the term of office at stake.

If elected on Wednesday I will be arguing for a shorter, sharper process in 2016. If not elected I would urge the six successful candidates to take this up. I think a quicker process will have more momentum, buzz and excitement to it and may even increase turnout as members will be conscious of the immediacy of it and not lose interest. A simple tweak but let’s spend as much time as possible campaigning against the Tories not amongst ourselves.