Sorry this is just another way of dressing up the current anti politics mood. If you want to help select those put forward for election for what ever party you support it is very easy you join a political party, they will welcome you with open arms. Unpopular they might be with many folk in the media but political parties are an integral part of the political system.

All parties need more members and taking away one of the few “benefits” of being a member will only weaken them more. More helpful is to give proper consideration to the issues around party funding. By openly and transparently providing state funding (parties would still need to raise funds for campaigning & electioneering) we could diminish the influences of millionaires and large organisations and encourage the sort of large scale small amount donation that was so important to Obama’s campaign.

The problem with individual parties taking the initiative, as opposed to “multilateral” action in which all parties are brought into line at once, is that it increases the risk of either “Trot Infiltration” or “Crossover Sabotage”.

To restate my position, I really believe that such concerns are misguided.

However – if all political parties were mandated to hold their primaries on the same day (as is usually the case in US Primaries), then it reduces the opportunity for ‘operation chaos’-style sabotage – because by orchestrating a group of, say, Tory activists, to vote in the Labour Primary, you would automatically be forfeiting your ability to vote in your own party’s primary: a fairly big incentive to take the system seriously.

If primaries are enacted in dribs and drabs, rather than across the board, it also creates a democratic defecit, in which some people are more represented than others. If our aim is to create a better social democracy, then surely such a situation should be avoided.

Hi Will,

Interesting article. More responses later, but 2 quick things:

1. “Individuals who have been working as special advisers or at think tanks face the same set of rules as the managers of Tesco or housing officers that Paskini cites. Ed Balls and David Miliband were not parachuted into seats. They had to win selection meetings.”

…which were stitched up. Where there are favoured candidates, the trick is to present local members with a choice of a local no hoper, 1-2 people from the other end of the country who have never visited the constituency (to meet the BME and women requirements), and the Special Adviser, who is backed up by a professional campaign and open support from senior Labour figures + the local MP. It’s not remotely a level playing field and nor is it designed to be.

(Though I do agree that it is also the case that many local people are impressed by someone who is a ‘slick suit from London’ when choosing their candidate.)

2. “a strict spending cap could be imposed on anyone seeking the nomination”

Problem is, if you start this from when the selection is announced, it is almost meaningless. The work and money in getting selected is mostly done by the time the selection is actually announced. Kitty Ussher, for example, got selected because she spent over a year travelling up to Burnley each weekend to meet the members – would the spending cap cover that?

It’s a sign of the times that Will Straw and Speaker Slayer Douglas Carswell http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/opinion/Douglas-Carswell-The-time-has.5310890.jp
find themselves in agreement on the need for open primaries. This is a good short term solution which would be of even greater merit in the wake of a far smaller House of Commons of say 400 members representing larger constituencies (a shift from safe seats!) that were truly contested by the parties. As such, quality candidates from all parties would be encouraged to battle it out in terms of their appeal to voters en masse rather then selection committees.

and probably too many lawyers

Depends on what you mean by too many but if memory serves correct over 60% are from a legal background…

Completely agree with your Will. I have been arguing the same thing about the system here in Norway where it is very similar to Britain. In my view the closed primaries of the political parties constitutes a democratic deficit with far reaching conseqeunces. Most crucially, the current way of doing things shuts the door on a lot of people to the whole process and the bi-product is nominess, and ultimately, a parliament dominated by politicos, who, by the way, are getting younger and younger it seems.

- Tony Tiller (Fulbright, Philadelphia 08).

Completely agree with your Will. I have been arguing the same thing about the system here in Norway where it is very similar to Britain. In my view the closed primaries of the political parties constitutes a democratic deficit with far reaching conseqeunces. Most crucially, the current way of doing things shuts the door on a lot of people to the whole process and the bi-product is nominess, and ultimately, a parliament dominated by politicos, who, by the way, are getting younger and younger it seems.

- Tony Tiller (Fulbright, Philadelphia 08).

[2] I “think” cross-over sabotage is a problem with open primaries, which I argued for in the days when it was neither fashionable nor profitable to do so (to crib from the one and only Myles na gCopaleen). However, it may not be that great.

Let’s look at some examples. Seat A is safe Tory. No point in Tories voting in any other primary than their own; temptation is for non-Tories to cross over. Unlikely there’ll be enough of them to affect the outcome, and if they do it will only be to favour the more “moderate” as opposed to “ultra” Tories – good for John Bercows, bad for Daniel Hannans. A similar logic will apply in safe Labour seats.

Seat B is a Tory/Labour marginal. Clearly supporters of those parties will vote in their own primary if the seat is open – if one primary is effectively a walk-over for the incumbent, then the logic of the previous paragraph applies with additional force. The challenging party will adopt a centrist candidate.

Seat C is a Tory/Lib Dem marginal. If open, the (presumably few) Labour voters will produce a more leftist Lib Dem candidate than might otherwise have been the case, and so possibly help the Tories to hold the seat (if people vote on candidates, which is doubtful). The same applies mutatis mutandis to a Lab/Lib Dem marginal. Again, if Lib Dem incumbent walks over the course, her supporters might cross over to secure a moderate tory (or Labour) challenger, but since this would be counter-productive they’d do better to abstain. Exception: they could try saddle the Tories with a Europhile candidate they didn’t want…

BTW, contrary to what Marcus Roberts expects, reducing the size of the HoC will not reduce the proportion of us living in safe seats although doubtless the location of marginals would change in large and unpredictable ways.

There is no guarantee we would get more working-class PPCs by holding open primaries. In fact, as it would make the selection process harder (more people to contact, more organisation required) it would favour those with more flexible working patterns, more time to contact people and better contacts inside the Party – so further helping exactly the type of people who are winning most selections at the moment.

The Labour Party was founded on the principle of working-class organisation for working-class representation. Whatever the system, that’s the only way of getting a different kind of candidate both selected and elected.

Although there are many forms an open primary could take (some not much dissimilar to the current process), the more I think about it the more I oppose most of them (and wonder if people like Jowell are trying to hedge against a swing to the left if we lost the next election). If you are really committed enough to the Labour Party enough that you’d feel entitled to a stake in who our candidate is, it’s not asking too much to contribute £1.50 a month to prove that commitment.

Opening our selections up without open primaries: yes. I’m all in favour of doing away with the nomination process as it currently stands and putting any eligible candidates who want to stand on the ballot paper. Or how about this: anyone who contributes money to the LP is entitled to one vote, so anyone who gives money to the LP through their TU subs can vote the same as any member can? That might help us get more working-class candidates with good Union backgrounds, too.

(Continuation of previous post)

If open primaries (OP) are a threat to anyone, it’s the Lib Dems. Who needs a centre Party if the system (outside of rock safe seats) leads the other two to adopt centrist candidates? One consequence of OP may be the emergence of semi-permanent factions within each of the Big Two which decide (behind closed doors) who their standard-bearer in each seat’s primary is to be.

[3] I’m sure Ms Ussher did nurse the seat that long, if not longer. Jeremy Corbyn spent ten years lusting after Islington North before he was elected there, although it was a little easier for him as he only lived a hundred yards or so outside its boundaries. I don’t see how on earth you can prevent people from doing this, or even why you should want to. Well, I can see why you might want to on the grounds that it betrays mild obsessive-compulsive disorder. Perhaps we should bring in State Funding after all and restrict it to candidates who have both undergone a rigorous psychoanalytic examination and are willing to publish the shrink’s report on them!

[9] Tim, do tell, what’s the definition of “working class”? Please give class position of following historical figures

(a) George Orwell; (b) Aneurin Bevan; (c) Barbara Castle; (d) Michael Martin.

And another one, Tim. Imagine (I know this is hard) that during the last twelve years the Labour Government had done everything you would have wished it to have done and nothing else. Holding this concept firmly in mind, state what proportion of 18/19 year-olds will next autumn enter University to study (a) academic (b) vocational courses. Explain why this particular proportion advances the interests of the workers more than any other.

In the event that you decline to play ball with me, I shall assume that you regard Jack the Plumber (on £40k a year or so) as working-class but his librarian sister Jill (on little more than half that) as middle class. Fair enough?

This is tiresome. WHATEVER definition of working class you use, there is a deficit of working-class representation in the House of Commons. If you don’t think that matters, of course you disagree with my comment above. If you think it does, my points are valid.

Since you ask – personally I’d say

Orwell: Upper middle-class
Bevan: Working-class
Castle: Lower middle-class
Martin: Working-class

Not that any of that matters. If your point is that being working-class doesn’t in itself make you more left-wing, I’d agree with that, but don’t see what difference it makes to my comment above. I want more working-class Labour MPs regardless of whether they’re on the left or the right of the Party (I’d prefer the left, though).

Why do you assume a librarian is middle-class, btw? Unless it’s a private library which they own and employ workers to run (in which case they wouldn’t be on £20k), I’d say they were working-class.

Mike@11

Tim’s characterisations are pretty much right.

Orwell described his family background as lower upper middle class.

By family background, Castle might well be lower middle class (her father was a tax inspector). By occupation, she was a journalist before entering parliament.

There might be two ways to look at the issue of working-class representation. One would be by family background; the other which has been collated systematically is by occupation, which the Nuffield studies have consistently reported

The background of current MPs by occupation is reported in this House of Commons note – 4th page
http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/notes/snsg-01528.pdf

jgc – The anti party politics mood has been around for a long time now and partly explains why party membership (of both Labour and Conservative) has fallen from over 1 million in the 1950s to under 200,000 now (albeit via an upward blip for Labour c.1997). Either this trend will continue in which case the decisions over party selection will be taken by a smaller and smaller group, or we do something –like open primaries – that recognises that Mancus Olson’s logic of collective action is no longer fit to describe 21st century political participation. Open primaries might even attract political “outsiders” like Obama and therefore draw people and small donations to political parties (and thus dimish the influence of millionaires and large organisations as you suggest).

Theo – Coordination seems like a very sensible idea. It would be terrific if the three major parties could agree to do open primaries for the next London mayoral election and hold them on the same day.

Don – (1) Do we know that the Ed Balls and David Miliband selections were a stitch up? Surely if a popular, charismatic, but independent local candidate had come forward they could have been defeated (as with Erith & Thamesmead). (2) I don’t have a problem with candidates putting leg work in before the campaign starts so long as it isn’t in the form of overt campaign literature / propaganda / events.

Leon – The report Sunder circulated suggests on p.4 that lawyers and solicitors make up 8% of Labour MPs, 20% of Conservatives, and 6% of Lib Dems.

Mike – You paint three very interesting scenarios. Something similar happened during the Ohio and Texas primaries (ie after McCain had secured the Republican nomination) when Hillary Clinton picked up votes from Republicans. But what’s the problem? If it’s a safe Tory seat isn’t it fair enough for Labour supporter to have some say and get a more moderate Bercow-like Tory representing them.

I find it strange that Straw and Anstead drew as a lesson from the Obama campaign that we should introduce open primaries in the UK. Hillary Clinton performed much better in the primaries than Obama did, the latter absolutely smashing Clinton in the caucuses. I know it’s not a direct analogy, but open primaries are stunningly open to abuse by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and “operation chaos”. I might be more tempted to back closed primaries.

Let’s just be clear on this, please correct me if I have got any of these facts wrong.

A prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) is someone with the endorsement of the constituency party. This means that the constituency party will pay the deposit and provide support in the form of an agent and party workers to get the PPC elected. There are legal constraints over the amount of money that can be spent, but it is clear that the Labour party will be investing money in that PPC.

An open primary means that anyone can vote in the selection of the PPC. The candidate list is still drawn up by the constituency party, but *anyone* can vote for someone on the list. (This is how Open Primaries are carried out in the US.) This means that the candidate, who the constituency party will support financially, loyally, and emotionally, will not be chosen by the constituency party members. Can you explain what benefit there is to being a member of a constituency party? And is it morally right that those people who have never shown any support financially or in their time, should get to choose the person that *other* people who do donate their time and money, should work hard to get elected?

“Open primaries” is a buzzword that has suddenly come into vogue. They are meaningless in solving the malaise that we have at the moment in political parties. What we need is a grassroots revival. What made the difference in the US with the Obama campaign is Howard Dean’s 50 State Policy. This was a grassroots groundswell. We need such a revival here. Party membership increased, but more importantly, non-party members campaigned to get Obama elected. people were inspired by the campaign and felt that they had to do their bit to make the election happen. You have to *inspire* people, get people interested in politics, get them involved locally.

Open primaries, will basically piss off party members by telling them that the Labour Party no longer trusts their choice, which will have the opposite effect to what is needed. It will make things worse, not better.

[13] Tim says

WHATEVER definition of working class you use, there is a deficit of working-class representation in the House of Commons

My dear old thing, that is not in dispute – my point is that you have to have a definition in order to be able to take action. Is that so hard to understand? Anyway, let’s all agree that it would be a good thing to exclude George Orwell from our ideal Parliament in order to accommodate Michael Martin.

The real problem is that attributions to class are gut feelings. Many people feel that workers “by brain” as the old Webbite Labour constitution termed it aren’t working class – people who work “by hand” can feel this quite strongly. In my imaginary case, Jack the Plumber may well feel that his librarian sister has “gone a bit posh” even though she earns the national average wage and he earns nearly twice that. And FWIW I feel that anyone who works as a building tradesman but also has a University degree isn’t really working class. And believe you me, there’ll be a few wannabes pulling that stunt in order to take advantage of any such discrimination in candidate selection.

The reason why the analogy with race and gender falls down is that those are things that (more or less) can’t be changed. But class isn’t like that. Let’s go back to Jack and Jill only this time pretend they aren’t siblings but rivals for a seat which has decided to adopt a working-class candidate. Why wouldn’t Jack’s supporters go round saying that Jill wasn’t working class? And both of them might have a go at the third wannabe candidate, Priscilla, who claims to be working-class because she’s only ever been a full-time mum (and has even less education than Jack) – she says it’s not her fault her mum’s an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Omnium, after all and whyshouldn’t her grand-daddy pay for her leaflets if he wants to?

In practice the government – if it lives that long – is going to produce a definition of class for us. Does Tim really think that it is going to meet with widespread acceptance?

My apologies – forgot to turn the blockquote off. And I thought I’d proofread it too…

#18

If I was suggesting quotas or AWCS (All-Working-Class-Shortlists) here, you’d have a point. I’m not – much as I’d like to see them I admit they’d be unworkable (although sometimes I raise them as a tongue-in-cheek gesture anyhow).

I haven’t suggested anything like that above. What I have suggested is that open primaries are no more likely to get us more working-class PPCs in winnable seats than current selection arrangements. Whatever definition of working-class you use, that point holds. I floated the idea that giving TU members in affiliated unions a vote in selection meetings might increase working class representation. That too is probably true no matter what definition of working class you use. Neither of these ideas would discriminate against any candidate by stopping them standing, or the Party telling them they weren’t working-class enough.

I also said that ultimately it’s organisation that will get working-class candidates selected. If there are individuals within the Party who want to organise around getting particular candidates who they believe are working class selected, that’s up to them and doesn’t require any central discrimination based on a single notion of what class means.

We could quibble about definitions of class until the cows come home, (and everyone has a slightly different definition), but that doesn’t affect anything I said in my comment about open primaries. What is it I’ve actually said that you disagree with? It seems like you saw the term “working-class” repeated a couple of times in my comment and automatically assumed that meant my comment couldn’t hold, because there are competing definitions of the term. Logically that isn’t true.

#17

Richard, some excellent points which go to the heart of the difference between membership of the Labour Party and “membership” of the Democratic Party. Because people register as Democrat/Republican/Independent and other than getting elected to a local committee, there is no difference between a supporter and a member, open primaries are the only way to select a presidential candidate for large parts of the US.

[13]

> Orwell: Upper middle-class

Eric Arthur Blair described himself as Lower Upper Middle Class, and pointed out how complex the British class system was at the time.

I think open primaries are a terrible idea. It would be too helpful to individuals with a lot of money/name recognition. It would also get rid of an incentive to be a party member, thus meaning that the parties would have to (as in the US) be de facto nationalised. If the parties are destroyed further, then general election campagining [like in the US and in many other countries] would have to be funded by candidates themselves rather than parties – thus favouring the rich and (if spending is capped) favouring celebrity candidates/those who can get a lot of media coverage.

I agree with Anonymouse. A bogus idea designed to look radical whilst actually protecting the status quo as much as possible (possibly even strengthening the hand of the monied), which would fit easily into the Cameron package set out this week.

Where does Will Straw stand on PR? I didn’t see this annywhere. This is the acid test. If he’s pro-FPTP then I”ll wager this proposal is a spoiler to draw attention away from the head of steam building up behind a referendum on PR at the General Election.

[18] Tim, so you would personally like to see “all working class shortlists” even though you refuse to offer a definition of working class?

You remind me of a certain class of leftie of a generation ago, who went around shouting “Fight Racism! Fight Racism!” When asked to define what racism was, they would reply that only a right-wing deviationist would even ask the question.

I have a suspicion that inside your ahead there never has been, never will be, never can be a false allegation – against a particular individual – of being “middle class” or “lower middle class” (doesn’t “petty bourgeois” sound so much filthier? go on, admit it…)

Not the least of the reasons for the left’s intellectual trahison des clercs of the last forty-odd years, leading in its turn to our current ongoing political démise, has been the prevalence of political pornographers of your type.

The worse thing is that open primaries will kill off any candidate who isn’t willing to appeal to the widest base of people as possible. Those who are really passionate about particular issues, or fiery, or cerebral – all of these stand no chance against bland, focus group-tested, centrist inoffensive candidates struggling to position themselves where the median voter is.

It is telling that the Tories, who oppose true reform of the system, i.e. electoral reform, are so enthusiastic about open primaries. What we need is a wider range of people being interested in politics – a groundswell of civic participation. That would lead to better candidates, primaries or otherwise, as well as more public involvement. You can shift the goalposts but until parties learn how to make political participation seem relevant and worthwhile again, you’re still playing the same old game. Sadly the main three parties are too discredited and too old to produce anyone who understands what will get the public interested in politics again.

I don’t know why people are so keen to protect political parties. I think our politics could be improved if they died a natural death rather than being re-animated by public funds. We now have enough information on individual MPs at our fingertips to know which way they slide, and party affiliation seems to have less to do with their direction these days anyway.

Open primaries? No.

The American and British systems are fundamentally different. The American parties don’t have members, just supporters and that’s who votes in primaries. Our parties do have members and if we can’t choose our own candidates, what’s the point of even being in a party? Don’t forget that in spite of all the optimism over Obama, the American party system is pretty horrible. A system in which one centrist party and one very right-wing party have an absolute stranglehold over the country.

Mike, you still haven’t identified anything I’ve actually said that you disagree with. All you’ve done is argue again that all-working-class shortlists/quotas would be unworkable, which I’ve agreed with.

Again, what is it I’ve said that you actually disagree with?

“The worse thing is that open primaries will kill off any candidate who isn’t willing to appeal to the widest base of people as possible. Those who are really passionate about particular issues, or fiery, or cerebral – all of these stand no chance against bland, focus group-tested, centrist inoffensive candidates struggling to position themselves where the median voter is.”

I don’t agree with this at all. There are many ways for a radical candidate to beat a bland centrist in democratic elections – it happens all the time.

In fact, it is easier in a (low turnout) open primary than in a general election because, for example, non-centrist candidates might well find it easier to raise money or call on more activists who support their cause than inoffensive, focus group-tested candidates who don’t inspire passion.

It does mean, though, that people who are passionate about particular issues, fiery or cerebral need to develop the skills to run a good campaign and build a wider coalition of support than just those who are already convinced. But a) that’s needed under any system and b) that’s a good thing, right?

But it’s our party. We pay our dues and it should be up to us to choose our candidates. If we want to emulate American politics we’d be better off getting rid of our feudal masters and electing our head of state.

[29] Tim, my view is that in order to be able to increase the proportion of Labour MPs who are working-class, it must at the very least be possible to say what proportion of them are working-class at the moment – in order to increase a number, it is first necessary to know what that number is.

In order to say what proportion of current Labour MPs are currently working-class you propose to proceed by inspection, rather like someone who can’t say quite how a fox differs from a dog but is able to say which any given animal is when he sees it. This was probably quite a sound way to proceed in Keir Hardie’s day – or even in Clem Attlee’s. For the reasons given by other Conspirators in answer to my quiz, it doesn’t work to-day. At least that’s what I think, to be honest I’m unclear whether you do in fact wish to proceed by inspection of individuals and intuitive assignment to one or other class, or not.

If it doesn’t work, then we have to have a set of decision-procedures to discover whether Jack, Jill or even Priscilla are working-class. We agree (I think) that such a set cannot be constructed. I find this a fatal objection to your programme, you don’t. I think that’s where the issue lies between us…

Just to be clear, I’d have no problem with a proposal to increase the proportion of manual workers in the PLP because that would imply a clear target (i.e. that it should be the same as that in society as a whole) but I presume that your use of the term “working class” means that you do not identify the class with manual labour.

No female posters. Why’s that?