Under the current system, 20% of MPs nominate a candidate and then have no further role. The leadership choice is thrown open to all party members, members of affiliated trade unions, and members of the public who pay a nominal fee and promise that they support the Labour Party.

Of course, there is inherent instability in giving the ballot to party members. Both Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn became leaders without the support of most of their MPs or even a majority of the Shadow Cabinet. Just 12 MPs admitted to voting for Corbyn in 2015.

The following year, Corbyn’s leadership was challenged in a ‘vote of no confidence’ by his own MPs, with 21 members of the Shadow Cabinet resigning. This was in spite of the measure having no constitutional standing within party rules. Though only 18% of Labour MPs proclaimed confidence in their leader, he remained in the role because 62% of members and ‘registered supporters’ wanted him to stay.

This lack of Parliamentary support made Corbyn’s leadership very unsteady, so that he was forced in some cases to ask shadow ministers to take on multiple roles, often with limited or no junior support. Even perennial backbenchers were dragged into service: 81-year-old MP Paul Flynn suddenly found himself as Shadow Welsh Secretary and Shadow Leader of the House of Commons in 2016. In government, this situation would be untenable, and Liz Truss’s premiership demonstrated the problems of a prime minister who lacks deep support from her own MPs.

It is reasonable to think that MPs have the most intimate and accurate knowledge of the leadership contenders. Jim Callaghan reflected in his autobiography that in 1976 he felt no need to give statements regarding the leadership election because the MPs already ‘were fully aware of my strengths and weaknesses’. Historically pragmatic in this regard, in 1963 the PLP, despite being dominated by the Right, selected Left-wing candidate Harold Wilson in the knowledge that his more centrist rival George Brown had a drinking problem, which had largely been obscured from the public with euphemisms about Brown being ‘tired and emotional’.

In the decades since, it is not at all clear that direct democratization has strengthened the quality of party leadership. In exchange for returning leadership selection to MPs, Starmer should make two concessions. First, he should reintroduce the annual re-selection of the party leader at the PLP AGM, providing an opportunity for whoever holds the position to be challenged, and to then have a reprieve to serve for the rest of the year if they survive.

The second change should be to increase members’ say over the selection of MPs. The candidate selection process must be pried away from the central command of the National Executive Committee (NEC) and the Leader’s Office, and MPs should face a re-selection vote at an all-members’ meeting. Where there is no Labor MP, shortlists should be left for constituency party executives to draw up, and selection should be a vote of all members. Only in extremis should the NEC interfere in candidate selection.

For four decades MPs have lost control over the election of party leaders, while leaders have instead taken power to choose MPs. Labor should return the selection of party leaders to MPs and, importantly, the selection of MPs to party members.

---

Richard Johnson is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at Queen Mary University of London.

richardmarcj

---