David Milliband has suggested Labour candidates for City Mayoral elections should be selected by an 'open primary'. At the moment it seems Liverpool will be the only city to go straight to an election on May 3rd 2012. The remaining 8 cities will hold a referendum first. If Liverpool Labour chose the 'open primary' route it would be the first place to do so. I'd be surprised if this was the outcome.
An 'open primary' allows registered supporters of a party to take part in the selection of the party's candidate. Milliband suggests that non-members could register as supporters for a small fee of £1 and this would entitle them to participate in the selection process for the candidate. He suggests that it could be a good way for the party to re-engage with electorate.
Labour has not used the primary method before and its only been used once before in British politics. The Tories held an open primary prior to the 2009 general election to select the candidate for Totnes. Dr Sarah Woolaston won the primary, just over 16,000 voters took part, and she went on to win the subsequent election becoming the MP for the Devon constituency. The French Socialist Party recently used the method proposed by Milliband to select their candidate for the forthcoming presidential election. Nearly three million voters took part in selecting François Hollande paying 1 euro each for the privilege. That's a good amount of voter engagement but also a tidy sum for the campaign coffers!
Joe Anderson might feel this is a shot across his bow. The current Leader of the Council occupies a position of strength of within the local party and is expected to be the party's candidate should Labour use a member-only vote. However, if the party uses the primary model it could open the way for another candidate to stand who might be more popular with the potential Labour supporting electorate.
It has been suggested the Liverpool administration chose to avoid having a referendum because the question was set-out in a way that would reflect negatively on the current administration. The referendum ballot question was phrased to make the choice between "This is how the council is run now" or "This would be a change from how the council if run now." If the referendum result was for a Mayor it would be used by Labour's opponents to suggest the electorate didn't support the way the party ran the council had been run. There's certainly a lot on antipathy towards the council, but that's politics folks!
However, Anderson might take some comfort that practicalities are on his side, or at least time is. It might be difficult to arrange and conduct an open primary in the time-frame. The selection of the candidate must happen by April 4th when the formal nomination process closes. Anderson supporters might hope the local party hierarchy drag their feet on this matter. If Labour are to use this method they will need to get a move on.
No comments:
Post a Comment