Ruling Required?

The various rumours of Margaret Curran going forward as a potential Labour candidate have proven to be true.

This begs a question…does the Labour party’s own rules permit Curran from putting herself forward. Thinking about this in a logical fashion it was on Friday evening that Labour members were due to carefully consider which of the three candidates they would select.

That meeting was ‘postponed’ when one of the potentials failed to turn up citing ‘family reasons’. From this we must be able to assume that nominations to become a candidate had closed prior to the Friday meeting. In which case…how can Curran be put forward? Surely its got to be a straight run-off between the two remaining candidates on Monday evening.

A wee look over at LabourHome and it seems that there are folk within the Labour party who, like me, think Curran being able to go forward after the nomination process had ended as being more than a little dodgy.

‘Topcat’ a former Labour candidate and selector says that “Now, and someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but in Glasgow East 3 candidates were shortlisted by the NEC by-election panel. Please correct me if this was the longlist. If they were shortlisted then the NEC panel believed all three were good enough, and if, as happened, one candidate (whoever he/she is) doesn't turn up for the members' selection meeting, then the selection proceeds from the remaining candidates. Obviously they wouldn't have chosen two weaker candidates to go up against a strong, favoured candidate - that would never happen, would it?

If they were not deemed good enough, they shouldn't have been on the shortlist.

By-election selections from an original shortlist of 2 have happened before, in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election, for example. So giving the Glasgow East members 2 members to choose from cannot be argued as being too limited a choice for members, unless the rules have changed.

What has happened has let the cat out of the bag as to the real processes and procedures at work.

That we now have the process where 'others' are allowed to enter the fray following a shortlisting and advertised members' selection meeting is laughable.“

Another question I have (and I`d be grateful if someone knows the answer) is would Curran be able to stand for the post since she is already an elected MSP under Labour party rules. Cast you mind back to January 2006 and the Dunfermline West by-election. In that contest Labour’s candidate was Catherine Stihler MEP. Labour’s NEC waived a rule which would have prevented her from standing as their candidate without first resigning her seat in the European Parliament.

Has this rule also been waived for Curran? And surely if it has Labour should go on the record and say so.

As ‘topcat’ observes on LabourHome “The By-election and late NEC selections processes are seen and now proven by the Glasgow East nonsense to be completely lacking in integrity and, worse, are part of the processes whereby a small coterie of people at the top of our party arrange the admission of their mates and annointees to that number; it then becomes a self-fulfilling process. It's A Very Labour Coup.”