The Outsiders: Time for the local activists to seize control of their parties again

By David Higgerson on Mar 15, 10 05:56 PM

Peter Kilfoyle.jpg

The extracts of Peter Kilfoyle's new book made interesting reading in the Mail on Sunday. Putting aside the irony of a Labour MP accusing other MPs of selling out after publishing his extracts in the Mail on Sunday, Kilfoyle raised some very important points.

Perhaps the most important one was the growing trend of the way parties are becoming more ruthless at parachuting their chosen candidates into seats, regardless of what the local party might think.

Kilfoyle particularly blames Harriet Harman for this, arguing she will galavanise women MPs behind her in a bid to become Labour leader after the general election. That sounds a bit fanciful as it relies on the notion that women will only support women, rather than the best candidate for the job - the very same principle which led to the all-women shortlists Kilfoyle is arguing against.

But his wider point, that too often local parties are being over-ruled in favour of a head office choice rings very true. It's one thing for the local parties to consent to have a party star as their candidate, but surely the local party should have the right to put its own candidates up to?

There are plenty of cases where an 'outsider' has become a huge hit in the constituency. Jack Straw comes from nowhere near Blackburn but some 30 years on, he's a very popular politician locally. Even the Tories in the town accept he's done a good job. Tony Blair was adored by the people of Sedgefield. Even at the height of the Hutton Inquiry, it was nigh on impossible to find a local who had anything bad to say about Blair in Sedgefield - I know this because I tried!

David Miliband is well regarded in South Shields, even though he was thrown in to the 2001 general election at very short notice. Areas which are traditionally loyal to one party take pride in having an MP who is a high-flyer - Blackburn, South Shields and Sedgefield are three such places.

But it has to be done with the party's blessing locally. Simply sweeping aside the notion of good local candidates is wrong. And it's also up to that local party to judge public opinion if they go for the party starlet from outside the area. Perhaps that's where things appeared to go wrong for Luciana Berger in Wavertree. It's one thing to select a non-local, it's quite another to pick one who can't even answer the most basic questions about the area.

It's not just Labour at it either. In his drive to get more ethnic minorities and women into his side of the Commons, David Cameron has turned to all-female lists and casts of choices made up of his A-list.

As with Labour in the run up to 1997, many Tory local parties have kept quiet about this, reckoning it's better to have someone from outside the area in the governing party than cause a row which could knock election hopes on the head.

Those who have rebelled - such as the so-called Turnip Taliban were threatened with being cut off from the Tories, and ridiculed by the very same London set which he Kilfoyle argues appear to be the main pool for parliamentary candidates these days.

The latest area to rebel is Hyndburn, a constituency in Lancashire, which is one of the seats which tends to swing when the Government changes colour, or in the election before. Current Labour MP Greg Pope is standing down and his replacement candidate is a well-know Labour councillor. For the previous few elections, Pope's Tory rival has been Peter Britcliffe, the Tory leader of the local council.

Hyndburn is a tad contradictory in the sense that it votes Tory overall for council elections but has backed Labour since 1992 at the general election. That would suggest that perhaps Britcliffe wasn't the best candidate for the Tories. There's no doubt he's a bandwagon jumper who says what people, he thinks, want to hear. But if his local Tory party wanted him as their candidate, why should another candidate be parachuted in from London instead?

The Tories in Hyndburn won't go quietly, unlike the rebels in Norfolk. Most have walked out of the Tories. Labour can make hay while the sun shines in what could be considered a marginal seat.

There's talk of Britcliffe standing as an independent Conservative. He won't win, but he might split the Tory vote - a situation which could easily be avoided if only the two main parties worked on the assumption that local parties have the right to select local candidates.

It's hardly a novel notion on the part of Kilfoyle to suggest that Parliament should be made up of representatives from across the UK, not just a London set scattered to the four corners of the Isles, only to return as quickly as they can. But it's a notion which neither of the main parties seem to take seriously, and as such who can blame grassroot members for thinking that the leaderships are only interested in their money?