Selection
of Parliamentary Candidates - is Democracy dying?
By
John
E. Strafford
With
the victory of the Conservative Party in the 2019 General Election we are
witnessing the greatest advance for democracy in a generation. The commitment to withdraw from the European
Union on 31st January 2020 means that at last we are taking back
control of our democracy. Once again
Parliament will be in control of our legislation. Once again, the people will be able to vote
for their representative in a parliament which legislates for the people of the
United Kingdom, and once again it will be judges of the United Kingdom that
determine what the law means.
With
the 2019 General Election we have also witnessed the greatest distortion of
democracy since before the Second World War, when rich Tory parliamentary
candidates purchased their seats in Parliament – a practise stopped by Lord
Woolton’s reform of the Conservative Party in 1948.
Both
Labour and Conservative parties deliberately delayed choosing their candidates for
the General Election in order that a small group of people in their headquarters
could decide who their own parliamentary candidates should be. When the General Election was announced both
Parties invoked “Emergency Procedures” to enable their HQs to take control of
the process of selecting Parliamentary candidates. The Brexit Party followed their example and did
not announce their candidates until two days before nominations closed. In addition the Brexit Party, which does not
have any members, decided which constituencies should be contested. Who took those decisions? Party members of the two main Parties were
effectively excluded from the process.
In the case of the Labour Party this was done for the Trade Unions to
have a larger say in the selections in order to get more trade unionists into Parliament. In the case of the Conservative Party it was
done in order to get friends of Cabinet Ministers, special advisers, party
officials and friends of the hierarchy into Parliament. In the case of the Brexit Party it was done
to enable their Leader to determine who should be a candidate.
Beaconsfield
Constituency Conservative Association (BCCA) had been trying to get the process
of selecting a candidate started for over six months before the General
Election. Our Member of Parliament,
Dominic Grieve had lost two separate votes of confidence in General Meetings of
the Association. At last, on 31st
October BCCA was given the go-ahead by CCHQ, but told it had to follow the “Rules
for the selection of Parliamentary Candidates for a General Election in 2019” (Rules
shown in bold) issued by CCHQ as an emergency overriding the Rules in
the Party’s Constitution. A similar
process had been implemented when the 2017 General
Election was unexpectedly called.
As
our Conservative MP, Dominic Grieve was not in receipt of the Conservative Whip
he could not be re-selected so the following procedure had to be followed:
“The
Party Chairman and Chairman of the National Conservative Convention (neither of
which have been elected or are accountable to all Party Members)
will nominate a shortlist of up to 3 applicants, (giving due regard to gender
balance) after consultation with the Chief Agent, Director of Candidates, the
Chairmen of the Candidates Committee (all of which are unelected and unaccountable) and the Chairman
and two Deputies of the Association.
An
Executive Council and a Special General Meeting were called to take place on
Saturday 9th November. Names
of the candidates and a standard CV were given to Party members one hour before
the meetings started. The meetings “will
be run consecutively to save time. The
meeting will begin with the Executive Council, but members who are not members
of the Executive are permitted to be present as observers.
At
the meeting of the Executive Council, members will simply be asked to agree
that the shortlist shall be put to members for selection. The General meeting will then follow
immediately, and the shortlist of candidates will be interviewed.
Voting
is to be by exhaustive ballot until one candidate has more than 50% of the
votes from those qualified members present and voting.
Occasionally,
the Executive Council or the SGM are not satisfied with the choice of
applicants put forward from the previous round. In these rare cases the proper procedure is
to move that the matter be referred back.
This must be done before the ballot is taken, but after the applicants
have been heard. After the motion for reference
back has been formally proposed and seconded it should be put to the vote by
secret ballot without debate. If the
reference back is defeated the proceedings must continue and proceed
immediately to the ballot between the candidates. If passed the selection process will be
halted and for this General Election the Chairman of the Conservative Party
will nominate the candidate.
The
Chairman of the Beaconsfield Association was a candidate and was one of the
three names. Who decided that? How were the other two names chosen?
The
BCCA officers were notified of the three names on Tuesday 5th
November with strict instructions not to disclose them. Nevertheless the following day supporters of
the BCCA Chairman were campaigning for him. On Thursday 7th November the
female candidate pulled out and to ensure gender balance was replaced by
another female candidate, so effectively two candidates had four days notice of
the meeting and one candidate had two days notice.
The
vast majority of members attending the selection meeting did not know who the
candidates were until they arrived at the meeting so were unable to find out
any information about them apart from the brief biographical details submitted
to the selection meeting.
The
Agent for Beaconsfield had assured me that he could run a full and fair selection
process within one week as he did in 1997 in similar circumstances, so why was
the Association forced to adopt this wholly undemocratic process? There was time for Beaconsfield to have a
full, fair democratic process for the selection of their candidate. Nominations for the General Election closed
on 14th November.
Beaconsfield
is one of the largest Conservative Association in the country with
approximately 1,500 members. The last
time it had to select a new parliamentary candidate in 1997 it had over 200
applications.
There
is one further point which does not affect Beaconsfield but may have affected
other Associations where there is a sitting Conservative MP. If the sitting Member of Parliament has
already been readopted by the Executive Council, no further action is required
and so long as the MP still wishes to stand again the candidate is selected
unless the whip has been removed.
Every Constituency Association should hold an Adoption meeting to which
all members are invited. This was the
position prior to 2006 and should be re-instated to ensure democracy is openly
seen to be working and all members of an Association take part in selecting
their candidate.
After
the debacle of the selection of candidates for the 2017 General Election it is
unforgivable that we were put in the same position for the 2019 General
Election. The Party Board and the
Committee on Candidates have failed in their duty. It is time for the Party Chairman and the
Chairman of the Candidates Committee to be elected by and accountable to the
members of the Party at an Annual General Meeting to which all party members
are invited.
Once
again, the ordinary Party members have been treated with the utmost contempt by
CCHQ, but the contempt goes further; effectively a small group of people are
determining who the parliamentary candidates should be. From these candidates we will get our
Members of Parliament. From our Members
of Parliament, we will get our Government Ministers, so these decisions affect
democracy.
The
situation is now so serious that there should be a public inquiry seeking to
clarify whether the undemocratic nature of our main political parties’ is
distorting parliamentary democracy in the United Kingdom!
Postscript: The
candidate eventually chosen by the Beaconsfield Association was Joy Morrissey
who is proving to be excellent, and I am sure if the full democratic process
had been followed would have topped the list of candidates in any case. Notwithstanding this exception the principle
of having a democratic process for the selection of candidates still stands.
