Candidate selection process lambasted
Helena Dollimore, a 28-year-old Oxford graduate who works as a senior manager at Unilever (in its Global Sustainability arm), has been selected as prospective Labour Party candidate for the parliamentary seat of Hastings & Rye following a ballot of local constituency members.
The party’s National Executive (NEC) had “long-listed” three candidates to attend the selection meeting, held at Ark Alexandra school on the morning of Sunday 17 July: Cllr Dollimore, who is currently a councillor in the London borough of Merton; the leader of the Labour group on Rother District Council, Christine Bayliss; and Simon Thomson, a councillor in Bromley. However, a message was received that Cllr Thomson was “recovering from Covid” and would not attend or seek nomination.
The meeting of around 300 members was chaired by a visiting member of the south-east region NEC (apparently from Oxfordshire). The two remaining candidates were allotted five minutes each to deliver their addresses, after which each was asked to give responses to four pre-scripted questions – on climate change, on housing, on winning votes in “Tory” rural parts of the constituency, and on their choice of a parliamentary committee to join if elected as an MP. They then had two further minutes to sum up. No questions or other interventions were allowed from the floor. The audience were then invited to ballot. The whole process took less than an hour.
End of story?
Cllr Dollimore came out the decisive winner (although the numbers were not announced at the meeting, they have been posted on a Facebook page as 233 for Cllr Dollimore, 55 for Cllr Bayliss and 4 for Cllr Thomson). In a subsequent press release a Labour spokesperson said: “Labour Members selected Helena Dollimore to be their Parliamentary candidate. With this mandate Helena, and the Labour Party, will challenge this failing Government and will provide a strong voice for Hastings & Rye. Helena grew up in East Sussex, she has strong roots in Hastings and Rother. Helena is an excellent choice to win back Hastings & Rye at the next General Election”. End of story? Not so fast.
Helena Dollimore – “strong roots in Hastings and Rother”
Readers of HIP 205 will recall that over 80 members of the local party were signatories to a letter sent to the National Executive prior to the meeting on 17 July protesting at the exclusion of Hastings Borough councillor Maya Evans from the candidate list. The letter had described Cllr Evans as “a popular figure locally, holding a senior council position for Labour, and with a track record of community activism…[she] fully deserves a chance to compete alongside other excellent candidates in a democratic selection process locally”.
There was a second letter, also sent prior to the meeting but which has not been made public, alleging that the NEC’s long-list selection was in breach of the party’s constitution. It may have cited failure to long-list other would-be candidates who had trade union endorsements (including Cllr Evans) or any BAME candidate (ditto). It might also have suggested that a choice of two could not be classed as a “long list”.
“Undemocratic”
Be that as it may, the National Executive made no reply to either letter, at least not prior to the day of the meeting, and at the outset there were shouted objections from the floor that the process was “undemocratic” and should be suspended. The chair gave this intervention short shrift and – perhaps surprisingly, given that a large number of the signatories to the first letter were in the hall, including current borough council leader Paul Barnett and former parliamentary candidate and council leader Peter Chowney – the meeting proceeded through to its conclusion unchallenged. However, a large number of members have taken to social media and other public forums in the aftermath to lambast the process. Several members have also tendered resignations from the party.
A local party activist wrote: “We had a selection committee already set up and an Executive Committee who could have run it. No councillors were asked to do so either, nor did a call go out to members for help as far as I’m aware. I find it insulting and embarrassing to the CLP [constituency Labour party] that we were shut out by the NEC in this way.”
A posting by another current party member put the issue in a wider context: “I have watched our CLP destroyed both in numbers and enthusiasm by region, the leadership, the diktats of the General Secretary, Stalinistic annual conferences and the gerrymandering NEC. The NEC should not have chosen the candidates at all. We had an NEC rep just to make sure procedure was followed.
“I have watched a 4,000 CLP membership reduced to 1,000 members in three years. Everything about this current selection was predetermined.”
Damage to standing
Some are more angered by the process than the result, feeling that Cllr Dollimore may well have won a properly democratic ballot, but pointing out the damage to her standing by the manner in which it was conducted. “Being content to be a beneficiary of a clearly rigged process without speaking out about it shows a clear lack of integrity. This is what has turned the whole country off politicians and the political process. Had Helena protested, she could at least have shown herself a credible candidate who would stand against injustice. Being content to be a cynical beneficiary of an obviously unjust process, where highly credible local candidates who hold or have recently held key political posts were barred from the long list, and with only four questions being ‘selected’ for the hustings by the out-of-towner councillor also parachuted in to run the stage-managed proceedings, shows all the reasons many will really struggle to get behind Helena Dollimore, and justifiably so.”
Others made more personal attacks. Another member posted: “So now we have a candidate parachuted in who is a senior executive for Unilever… clearly the candidate they wanted us to select: hence the glossy, full-colour, 4-page A4 campaign leaflet that was delivered to every local Labour member. There’s money behind her and that tells you everything you need to know, along with the fact that it was necessary to bar some really excellent local candidates from standing. She’s not getting my vote.”
Any voting in a general election is some way off – very probably more than two years – which begs a question of why the selection process should be hurried through at this stage. On the other hand, it seems that Cllr Dollimore may need all of that time to win round a sufficient proportion of party members to fight for her when it matters.
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I’m a Labour Party member of 45 years standing and have campaigned in local and general elections over all of those years, the national and local campaigns in 2019 were a shambles, between 2017 and 2019 the Tory majority in Hastings and Rye went from a few hundred to over 4,000. In many ways the Hastings and Rye CLP has become a laughing stock over the years and I can see why the National Executive Committee decided to oversee the Parliamentary selection process. To my mind there were no decent local candidates who had a chance of winning in Hastings and Rye, and so it was right to look further afield. Helena Dollimore is an outstanding candidate and will give Sally Anne Hart a run for her money. Now at least we have a candidate who can win at the next general election.
I’m a follower of your local affairs from afar, and Mike’s comments seemed to stand out; as an example of what’s needed, when searching for a positive, balanced approach to candidate selection. The Labor (American spelling) Party throughout Australia; in recent years, has gradually achieved total political dominance, by adopting the good old cohesive,unifying teamwork approach to results. Hastings and Rye; is not only winnable with Helena: but could; between now and December, 2024; show by example, how party membership can “Come together”as a loyal, enthusiastic, unified team; that will inevitably remove the Tory Party from office!
Bickering among yourselves, perpetuating division and faction differences; will be self-defeating. Be “Winners” together, be loyal to the Party’s aims together, be “Jointly” proud together and see Britain, “Turn Red” together!! Get it done! With all good fortune, Rex Pulker
To be fair the NEC was responsible for allowing leading labour figures to campaign against the Labour Party and deliver victory for johnson. It is just unfair to blame local parties for a national catastrophe. Plus Maya would have been a winning candidate, “local matters”.