The New Selectorate

Strong words from Michael Crick, writing in unherd about Labour’s parliamentary selection processes. His most recent attention has been grabbed by the goings-on in Croydon East, where mysterious members come and go – even if they’re dead (allegedly). Crick writes ‘I am convinced that many selection contests have been fiddled and fixed by party officials.’ And ‘It is completely unsatisfactory that the [party] investigation into Croydon East should be carried out by the London Labour Party, when there may have been wrongdoing within the London HQ itself.’ Crick suggests that an independent KC should be called in. There is irony here. When Starmer called in an independent KC to review Labour’s disciplinary processes the resultant Forde Report was promptly ignored by Starmer. He’s hardly more likely now to repeat an appeal to independent review over the more sensitive selection process of Starmer ‘clones.’ The party is now operating a system of selection in which the membership is treated
on an industrial scale of irrelevance (unlike in my time as an organiser when it was purely hit and miss.)

Given the importance of parliamentary selection processes, and in the light of the evidence Crick is amassing, it is perhaps time for the oversight of the processes (for all parties) to be subject to standard oversight by a body like the Electoral Commission, perhaps with voting to be handed over to somebody like the Electoral Reform Society.