Labour have selected more women in safe seats but not a single BME candidate

Research has found that of Labour’s 24 “safe” seats in England and Wales where a selection is taking place, the party is selecting more women than at the last general election.

Analysis from Westbourne Communications, conducted by Lewis Baston, found that only 7 of the MPs retiring from these 24 seats are women. Yet 13 of the candidates are, so far, female. And with 7 male candidates, 4 seats are still undecided – meaning more women could be selected.

More broadly researchers found that the number of women in Parliament looks like it could go from 148 to 200 come May.

However, this same analysis shows Labour has failed to elect a single candidate in any of these “safe” seats who identifies as being black or minority ethnic (BME). Out of all of the parties, only the Tories have selected a BME candidate for one of their safe seats. [Update: Tory HQ have been in touch to say that they’ve selected 6 BAME candidates in the 30 Tory seats with retiring MPs]

These damning findings come after calls from Labour MPs, in particular David Lammy, at the end of last year for Ed Miliband to do more to ensure BME candidates are elected in May.

The reason for MPs asking the party leadership to act on this is apparent if we look at the statistics. At the moment there are 27 BME MPs in parliament – this is a disproportionate amount; if parliament is to reflect the population, there should be 117 BME MPs.

And of these current BME MPs 16 are Labour, yet research shows Labour should have 49 MPs who identify as being people of colour if the number of BME MPs are to be proportionate to the communities they represent.