Opinions from a loyal Labour Party member
Labour leadership – the two nightmare scenarios
Now that it’s all done bar the counting I want to share my fear about what is about to happen to the Labour Party. My big fear is that whichever Miliband brother wins, it will be because of a seriously flawed electoral process. This leadership contest has for me shown without a shadow of a doubt that Labour’s rules for the contest need to be fundamentally revised.
The two nightmare scenarios for me are:
1) David Miliband wins, but only because of the strength of his MP support and loses the union section, and probably even the membership section.
2) Ed Miliband wins because he overwhelmingly carries the union and membership section, but loses the MP one.
Either scenario means that we’ve got a leader who will from day one lack some credibility and find it far harder to to unify the party and take it in a brave new direction.
My personal view is that MPs have far too great a say in the leadership election. It is absolutely right that MPs have a big say as a leader must command the respect of his/her colleagues. But currently MPs have two big says – they control the shortlist and each individual vote carries massive individual weight in the actual election.
One of the two has to be curtailed. Personally, I’m happy for MPs to control the short listing and the current threshold is about right. However, nominations should be anonymous. MPs mustn’t feel threatened in to supporting a particular candidate because of fears over their future career prospects. That type of bullying fear-filled electoral practice is for the 20th century, not the 21st.
That means however that MPs should be stripped of most of their voting power, perhaps reducing them to just 10% of the electoral college. They’ve had their say and kept anyone totally unsuitable off the shortlist, so it’s up to grassroots members to have the final say.
That wouldn’t solve the issue.
Sure .. it means that David Milliband couldn’t win with MP Support alone.
But if Ed Milliband wins with the grassroots support and unions, how’s that different to if it happens anyway?
If he doesn’t command the support of the MPs he’s still going to find life difficult.
Stuart, one of your nightmmare scenarios will happen – but I don’t think they are that nightmareish unless the winning candidate only wins 1 section of the college, 2 is fine and 3 is inconcievable.
I would have a straight 2 way college after MP Nominations as the MPs get minimum 2, more likely 5-8 votes anyway. This keeps our wide franchise and the threshold of nominations to keep out
MPs with little support from their colleagues.
I agree with almost everything you have said. Reducing the MP College quota is a good idea, as long as the remainder goes to the members.
Im not sure about keeping the nominations secret as I think its useful to know just what “characters” are supporting a candidate. Again as you say, the MP’s will generally know them better than we do and therefore knowing who has supported who can assist a member in making their choice.
Barry