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The influence of legislators’ endorsements in party leadership elections

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British Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

In the 2010 election for the post of leader of the British Labour party, almost all members of parliament endorsed one of five leadership candidates. I investigate the effect of these endorsements on the votes cast for candidates in each Westminster constituency. I find that an MP’s endorsement caused an average increase of 7.5 percentage points in the vote share of the endorsed candidate in that MP’s constituency.

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Notes

  1. For the role of trade unions in the election, see Jobson and Wickham-Jones (2011).

  2. Former leader Gordon Brown, acting leader Harriett Harman, chief whip Nick Brown, and chairman of the parliamentary party Tony Lloyd did not vote for reasons of propriety. Eric Illsley MP, elected in 2010 as a Labour MP, was prevented from voting, as he had been suspended from the party after having been found guilty of false accounting.

  3. See Perry, David “New Labour leader to be named at rally”, Aberdeen Press and Journal, 24th September 2010.

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  1. School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

    Chris Hanretty

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  1. Chris Hanretty
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Correspondence to Chris Hanretty.

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Hanretty, C. The influence of legislators’ endorsements in party leadership elections. Br Polit 13, 454–466 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-017-0056-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41293-017-0056-6

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