Local party members can’t help select Labour candidates
A ROW has broken out in Welsh Labour over the selection of General Election candidates.
Local party members will be excluded from any involvement and instead three party officials will decide who will get the nominations in 15 seats currently held by other parties.
Labour currently holds 25 of the 40 constituencies in Wales and all 25 sitting MPs have confirmed they will be standing again.
But the party’s Welsh Executive Committee (WEC) decided on Thursday that the remaining 15 candidates will be chosen by a panel comprising the chair, vice chair and treasurer of the WEC.
A proposal that there should be local involvement in the selections made by Darren Williams – a full-time official
with the public sector union PCS and a member of the party’s ruling National Executive Committee – was rejected.
Mr Williams posted a message on his Facebook page saying: “Labour’s WEC met to discuss the general election and I’m sorry to report that the proposal that the three WEC officers should select all 15 candidates in Wales’ nonLabour-held seats was adopted.
“My amendment to include someone from the CLP in question on each selection panel, along with one of the elected WEC reps responsible for CLPs in the region in question, got only seven votes. Anyway, whatever the outcome of this process, we all need to get behind the party’s campaign and elect the maximum number of Labour MPs.
“I will just add, though, that I get pretty sick of people in meetings like this telling me that, because I’m concerned about party democracy, I must be comparatively indifferent to the actual electoral process and its outcomes. ‘Some of us actually want a Labour government’, someone said this evening, believe it or not. I’ve heard a lot of c**p at party meetings over the last 28 years but this kind of thing really plumbs the depths.”
Mr Williams told us: “I understand there are severe time constraints involved in choosing our General Election candidates, and it wouldn’t be possible to go through the normal selection process.
“But it’s unfortunate that there’s no input at all from local parties. My proposal would have seen the constituency party chair or secretary on the panel, together with a regional representative from the WEC. But the majority took the view that would be too difficult to organise in the short time available.”
The 15 candidates won’t even have to be interviewed: the selections will be made by Welsh Labour chair Mike Payne, vice chair Pam Baldwin and treasurer Jen Smith on the basis of their CVs.
Mr Payne is from Cardiff, Ms Baldwin from Caerphilly and Ms Smith from Bridgend, so there will be no representatives from north or west Wales selecting candidates in those parts of Wales.
It is understood that unsuccessful Labour candidates who stood in 2015 will be offered the opportunity to stand in June’s election. Mari Williams, who stood in Cardiff North at the 2015 general election, has decided not to stand again this time.
A Plaid Cymru spokeswoman said: “Plaid Cymru has always strived to construct its candidate selection process in the most open and transparent manner possible.
“Contrast this with Labour’s ‘stitch-up’ approach and it’s easy to see which party shows most regard towards the democratic process.
“It is no surprise that Labour is doing all it can to manipulate its selection process considering the chaos and division blighting the party at present.
“This is an extraordinary election and while aspects of standing orders and other such factors may have changed due to the circumstances, we remain committed to conduct a fair and thorough process.
“We are confident that this will result in a strong slate of candidates ready to fight for Wales’s best interests against this cruel and reckless Tory government and the weak and divided Labour Party.”