Shadow minister and Labour MP Sam Tarry to face full selection process

Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.

Sam Tarry MP has been ‘triggered’ – which means an electoral college of local party branches and organisations affiliated to the Ilford South Constituency Labour Party (CLP) have voted against the incumbent Labour MP being automatically reselected as the Labour candidate and for a full selection process. This means the shadow transport minister will be pitted against other parliamentary hopefuls to decide who contests the constituency on behalf of the Labour Party at the next general election. 

Making incumbent MPs go through the full selection process – referred to as ‘open selections’ by those in favour and ‘mandatory selections’ for those less keen – has long been a contested part of the Labour rulebook. Those on the left tend to prefer a lower threshold to trigger a full selection process, or no threshold to overcome at all, while historically the Labour right have been more pro automatic reselection (note well, however, that this is not a cleavage that always holds true; members from the same wing of the party do disagree on the point). Tarry and Apsana Begum, both on the Labour left, have voiced support for open selections in the past, for example.

Under Jeremy Corbyn, the threshold for triggering a full selection process was reduced to a third of more of either local party branches or affiliated organisations voting for one. Rules for the trigger ballot process were then changed again at the 2021 party conference – making it more difficult to avoid automatically reselecting the incumbent Labour MP as the candidate – to the current threshold: more than 50% of the combined party branches and affiliates under the electoral college.

The final votes in the process were cast last night. The electoral college voted 57.5% to 42.5% in favour of holding a full selection process. Party branches – comprised of members in each local ward – collectively make up 50% of the electoral college, with each of the ten in the Ilford South constituency accounting for 5%. All ten voted to trigger Tarry. Of 596 members who took part, 396 (66%) backed holding a full selection process, while 200 (34%) voted to reselect the MP. 20 affiliated organisations voted (each accounting for 2.5% of the electoral college). Three voted to trigger Tarry while 17 opted to automatically reselect him. 

As you can imagine, the result has not been announced without some controversy. The shadow minister said in a statement this morning that he has submitted evidence of “rule-breaking, concrete evidence of voter fraud, voter impersonation, widespread voting by party members not on the electoral register, and the dangerous whipping up of community tensions to undermine the democratic reselection process” to the party. He reported that he has “consistently” raised concerns about the process over the last few months, adding: “All of my concerns not only went unheeded but the process was launched without consultation with myself, was completed just two weeks after that decision was taken, and was held entirely online without rigorous membership checks.”

Tarry argued that there is “now a clear pattern of factional elements of the party machine targeting socialist and trade union backed candidates”. Some have pointed out that the only other MP to be triggered so far is his Socialist Campaign Group colleague Apsana Begum – whose selection process has also been the focus for claims of rule breaking. Selection processes (where the party picks candidates in seats where there is no incumbent) have also attracted criticism from those on the left – allies of Keir Starmer denied last week that the leadership is intervening to stop left wingers standing. The two triggers we have seen also undoubtedly reflect a shift in the membership since both were selected as candidates in 2019. Many members have left the party, some new ones have joined, and both the left-backed candidates now face a different landscape.

Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.