The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates

Abstract

The fiercest battles over institutional change in the Labour Party have concerned the selection of parliamentary candidates. This area is the major interface between the ‘party on the ground’ and the ‘party in office’, and often becomes the focus of reform, as politicians attempt to increase their autonomy from activists, and the latter seek to reduce it. Candidate selection rules first became contested in the Labour Party in the mid-1970s, when they were targeted by the activist left as a means of asserting control over the PLP. Labour’s modernisers in turn sought to unravel the left’s reforms in the 1980s by devolving voting rights downwards from activists to ordinary members, in tandem with a strengthening of central veto powers. They also identified selection rules as a key aspect of the party’s rela-tionship with the unions, and subsequently fought to remove union influence, as part of their project to transform Labour’s image as a party of sectional interests. However, union resistance to change was determined and persistent. Powers over candidate selection provide access to, and control over, the gateways to parliament. Given that the unions formed the Labour Party precisely to acquire parliamentary representation, it was to be expected that they would mount a rearguard defence of their institutional prerogatives.