Selection boxing

Fights over candidate selection are a classic case of factional short termism. The Soft Left should argue for a long term solution.

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This week, a piece by NEC member Mish Rahman appeared on LabourList talking about measures introduced at the most recent NEC meeting aimed at improving the candidate selection process and ultimately, the quality of the candidates themselves.

This report from Ann Black (largely considered to be of the Soft Left) explains in detail what the discussion was about.

The most contentious item was a paper on ensuring high quality candidates at every level, to satisfy the rule that “Labour candidates must meet high standards as determined from time to time by the NEC”.  This was the first part of a framework to codify such standards.  It was essential because the EHRC report held the national party responsible for the behaviour of its “agents”, including Labour candidates, and also there have been recent episodes where candidates were removed following media revelations - see for instance

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-trevor-merralls-eradicate-islam-tweets-parliamentary-candidate-investigation-racist-muslims-islam-a7713111.html

It is clearly better for the party to exercise due diligence in advance than to outsource it to the press. 

The document proposed that candidates for public office should be held to higher standards of probity than other lay members.  Application forms would require details of all social media accounts, and ask applicants whether there was anything in local, regional, national or social media which could be seen as embarrassing to them or to the party, and whether they had been involved in a company which was liquidated, or had business debts, or been convicted of a criminal offence.   Answering yes would not automatically disqualify a candidate, but the selection panel or assessment team needed the full facts.

In some ways this just makes current good practice explicit.  However there was unease about the punitive-sounding language, when Labour wants and needs more candidates with lived experience.  Members may say silly things when young or in a state of mental distress, and spent convictions should not be a lifetime barrier.  Several of us disliked the term “high quality” which suggests passing exams or being posh, and would rather refer to probity or integrity  “Embarrassing” was considered subjective but is probably the best we can do.

It can come as no surprise that many feel this is both needed and long overdue. Labour has seen a string of embarrassments with MPs elected who were clearly unfit for the job. The tragic story of Jared O’Mara - for example - is of someone as much failed by the system as failing the party. He was a poor candidate who, for his own sake and the Party’s should not have got through any sensible vetting process. This is just one example. There are recent Labour MPs who have gone to jail and some facing charges - though they remain innocent until proven guilty.

So, of course, Labour’s selection processes need overhauling, and the suggestion by Mish that to want to do so in and of itself is factional or an attempt to impose an identikit group of middle class party apparatchiks is - I believe - an outdated view both of who makes up the various Labour factions these days and also what these measures seek to impose and how.

For example, There were literally dozens and dozens of people who worked - at one time or another - for Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the opposition. Many more who worked as advisors for his Shadow Cabinet. Corbyn was the leader for five years, so the idea that anyone with a lengthy history of serving a parliamentarian will skew towards a Labour Right perspective is not really reflective of the balance of the sheer number of advisors and staff members that will have come through over this period.

Equally, I don’t believe that we can assume that coming from a trade union background automatically ensures greater working class representation.

For a start, we are really quite bad at talking about what this actually means. Being an MP probably means that you are middle class. At least in that you will be earning from a non-manual profession an above-average wage. I had an argument recently about whether I was working class. The person I was arguing with insisting that I was as I have to earn a wage to live.

Now I am in no way rich. But I do own my own home, I have a postgraduate degree and I do not do manual work. When I am in directly paid employment I earn above the average salary and I am currently the director of my own company. None of these are signifiers of anything other than being middle class. If we expand the definition of working class to include me it is meaningless. Equally, if we also include it to mean the many middle class people who work in senior union positions it is also meaningless.

So while we absolutely have to expand the access and representation of working class people in the PLP and among councillors we need to have a more comprehensive understanding of what that means and how it might be done.

One way I would ensure this happens is to use the money we invest in key constituencies better.

For example, the Labour Party have recently invested a lot of money into paying so-called community organisers in many key seats. Now I am a big fan of the community organising model. I think it is great for empowering communities and raising issues up outside of traditional party and political structures. But the way this has played out all too often is not in a distributed power model across a constituency, but in the establishment of a new power base that has largely played out traditional politics - internally and externally.

I think Labour has a lot to learn from community organising about how we engage with communities, how we change the manner, method and outcomes of our engagements and how we move from an outdated and oftentimes unhelpful data gathering model to one that vastly deepens out links with those we seek to serve.

But by imposing a new role before any depth of thinking or understanding about the structure or aims and outcomes, all that happened was old politics with new job titles.

Meanwhile, candidates were being selected, often many many years before any election was likely to be called, and expected to give vast amounts of time to the party for free.

This naturally causes resentment at times of these paid roles. But more importantly, it drastically reduces the kinds of people who feel able to take up a candidacy in a winnable seat. If you’re doing manual work, long hours and are low paid with a young family, it is unrealistic to expect you to be able to take on all the additional duties of a candidate. Most people wouldn’t even contemplate it. So of course candidates are drawn largely from a pot either of those who can afford to reduce their income or those who will be sponsored by their employers (often a union).

One radical, practical and workable change that we could make would be to pay our candidates a decent wage to support them in fighting for the constituency. Make it possible to afford childcare and fight an election. Make it possible to leave a low paid job to be the local Labour representative. Make it possible for people in insecure housing to stand.

This is the kind of pragmatic radical idea that I want to see the Soft Left championing. Rather than simply getting bogged down in the day to day factional infighting that both sides employ whenever improvements are mooted.

We also need to think about what it is exactly we’re tying to achieve. I find both Ann and Mish’s language around the term ‘high quality’ really disappointing. ‘High quality’ only means being posh or even having passed exams if you’re a raving snob. We see examples every day of those who have passed exams, are posh as hell and are the lowest quality people imaginable. Look at Boris Johnson for a start.

Perhaps we - as the Labour Party - should not fall into the trap of low expectations quite so easily. a ‘high quality’ candidate is someone who fits the brief well. What matters then is not their class or educational background, but how that brief is drafted. What qualities we are looking for and how they might exhibit them. It is up to us as an organisation to set a culture that expects probity and sense, but does not somehow equate these with status at birth.

finally, we come to the idea of embarrassment. In Mish’s piece he argues that a candidate fighting for socialist values might embarrass the general secretary. That seems like a wild and factional stretch to me. But we do need to be clear what we do and don’t mean by this embarrassment. Frankly, the terms of this should be limited, regulated and restricted. It should be limited to specific types of previous conduct that goes against the aims and values of the Labour Party (and cannot be demonstrated to have been actively changed) - not the aims and values of some members of the party.

There will always be live political debates (and these don’t always fall neatly within factional lines) on which people of good faith can disagree. If you disagree strongly enough, you can choose not to back a candidate or support their opponent for selection. That’s your democratic right. But have the argument.

On the other hand, if someone has things that will genuinely embarrass the party they must be known about and considered before their selection. But this too has to be ringfenced or it will become simply a subjective way to keep down those you dislike.

For example, I am very open on social media about sex, my enjoyment of it and my openness about it. I talk about the fact I’ve had to go on antidepressants during the pandemic (not least because I’m not having any bloody sex). I talk about my icky body and it’s perimenopause, periods and hormones. I talk about my womb and overies and vagina.

Is this embarrassing? well it probably is for my Mum and Dad (both of whom read this HI GUYS!). But it shouldn’t be for an adult political party. If - God forbid - I chose to run for office, I might see these quoted on Guido. But the party would be well prepared in advance because I had declared them and neither me not they should be embarrassed by them.

I once got myself onto the approved candidate’s list. At my interview for the role I was asked if I had done anything to embarrass the party and my answer was “I’ve taken drugs in the past and I’m a long way from being a virgin. I’m embarrassed of neither and happy to defend myself against anyone who thinks I should be”. Now I have no intention of ever becoming an MP. I can think of little I want less. But ask me about my embarrassments and my answer would be exactly the same. And anyone else who answers that way should not be seen as unfit to be selected.

When parties try to change their selection criteria it always leads to a factional backlash. Every faction believes at some point the rules have been changed to favour their opponents or hold them back. All too often that has been true. But that doesn’t mean that rule changes are a bad idea. Perhaps, instead of worrying about which of your most loyal and favoured supporters wouldn’t get through a robust selection, we should all be finding and nurturing the talent that will - whatever part of the Labour tradition they belong to. In the long run, isn’t that best for all of us?

What I’ve been up to

No new writing this week, but I was on the Midatlantic podcast to discuss the failing state of the United Kingdom.

Reading List

A pair of pieces this week (both from blokes, sorry sisters, will try to do better!) on what Boris Johnson lacks personally (by Jonn Elledge) and a broader piece on the Tories groping for and missing the consequences of the inequality they have causes (by Rafeal Behr)

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Questions, comments and arguments are very welcome. Insults will get you summarily blocked on every platform that no longer hosts Donald Trump. I’m at emmaburnell@gmail.com or on Twitter (far too often) at @EmmaBurnell_.