From ‘open selections’ to the NEC result: democracy should be more than a slogan

Two stories this week provide a fascinating picture of democracy in the Labour Party. On Monday, Momentum announced they are backing a shake-up of the selection process for sitting MPs. Depending on which side of the party you are on, this is either opening up the party or a partisan attempt to kick out centrist representatives.

Momentum – rightly, I think – argue that Labour’s selections process should be more democratic to “give a fair chance to all candidates” and “encourage positive campaigning”. They criticise the “divisive practice” under current rules of forcing members to campaign against the incumbent MP to trigger a full selection process – rather than to automatically have a diverse and transparent conversation about who is best for the constituency.

Monday also offered news that all Momentum-backed candidates won places on the national executive committee. There’s a link between these two stories: Momentum’s call for a more democratic selection process, and an undemocratic election result.

The 30% or so of members who voted will know that Labour’s NEC elections use a ‘block voting’ method – that is, first-past-the-post. The top nine candidates win and all other votes go to waste. If your choices aren’t in the top nine, tough.

That system means – as we saw – 56% of the vote (often much less) for an organised grouping can hand them 100% representation. Despite candidates from other wings of the party getting a significant chunk of the vote, those viewpoints won zero seats. While more voters may have preferred near-winners such as centre-left Eddie Izzard over Peter Willsman, the vote-wasting machine of the block system meant independent voices go unheard.  

I’m on the left of the party, but the current system encourages organisation along factional lines: the #JC9 facing off a more dispersed, fragmented soft left. There is now apocalyptic talk of this marking the end of the road for non-Corbynistas. The dramatic exaggerations in representation we see under the current system do naturally lead to such destabilising fears.

Two things can happen as a result: it forces a split, or it forces ever more factional organising. These options are not mutually exclusive. The Progress/Labour First side regroup, minimise choice (to avoid splitting the ‘moderate’ vote) and the Corbyn-side hardens. That in turn is a recipe for a split. 

For Labour centrists, they may predict their chances are slim at the next NEC election, meaning they field just a couple of centrist/centre-left candidates (to ‘focus’ the moderate vote). That minimises choice for members, and again encourages a tribal mentality: the view that it doesn’t really matter who gets elected, it’s the faction that counts. There’s a fairly solid rule in progressive politics: 100% of the power is bad for democracy, diversity and openness. 

Of course, this clean sweep – as good as it may feel – is artificial. It stems from an inability for voters to rank candidates by preference. Currently, people’s votes go entirely waste if their first choices don’t have enough support. This system doesn’t reflect the values the left of the party say we support – not least in the call for ‘democratic’ and modern, diverse open selections.

The solution? On the left of the party, Momentum need to prove that its call for more democracy in terms of selections isn’t self-serving, but about principles. That requires switching to a modern, democratic voting system like the Single Transferable Vote for NEC elections. All that talk of ‘splitting the vote’, ‘wasting your vote’ and voting only on bloc lines could become a thing of the past.  

For the centre of the party, this is a much-needed compromise that could potentially be secured in return for accepting open selections. It means guaranteeing that the diversity of views in Labour is represented, without (ironically) having to pare down the number of moderate candidates and limit voters’ choices.

Momentum getting behind a diverse, proportional voting system for the NEC would be the single most powerful way of showing that its rhetoric about increasing democracy is genuine. And for the whole party, this could be one way to avoid a damaging split. Democracy is a fundamental principle, not just for when it suits our side. Let’s embrace it whichever part of the party we come from – and improve our internal culture while we’re at it.

Josiah Mortimer is editor of Left Foot Forward and also works for the Electoral Reform Society. He writes in a personal capacity.

@josiahmortimer