Anders Hanson

It’s starting to feel as though a huge tidal wave has been unleashed. You get lots of people being cagey about the Lib Dem European candidate selections, and then suddenly when the result is known everyone has an opinion. The best of them so far is from James Graham, who explains some of the problems with the selection process, but also clarifies the gender balance situation very well.

Firstly, on a positive note I am really pleased to see some the results of some selections, particularly Ed Maxfield in the East Midlands who has come second on their list and now looks a good bet to be the next Liberal Democrat MEP for that region. I first knew Ed when we were activists in the East Midlands (he as the regional campaigns officer and me as a councillor in Derby), we both then ended up in Hampshire (he as county campaigns officer and me as constituency organiser for Eastleigh) and then have remained friends ever since. Ed is down to earth and personable, a great campaigner, but also has some very strong views on the way Europe and politics generally work.

But as far as I am concerned that is where the good news ends. These results show once again that it is impossible to defeat an incumbent MEP in a selection. Although that should not be a huge surprise, the margins by which they were all re-elected were massive and show that anyone who harbours the idea of defeating them is doomed to defeat. So far though most Liberal Democrats are blaming the selection rules which allow MEPs to continue their ‘normal duties’ such as putting out glossy leaflets to members and news updates by email. But really this huge advantage for the incumbent is no different from the one we have with MPs as sitting MPs are also impossible to shift. In fact it is probably worse as MPs don’t even have to go through a full selection process. With MPs we rightfully blame the first-past-the-post electoral system, rather than the party selection rules. Just as with MEPs selections, the real villain of the piece is the closed list system that was adopted by the Labour Government and which we rightfully argued against at the time. We have some excellent MEPs like Sharon Bowles, Fiona Hall and Chris Davies, but they should win on the grounds of them being excellent rather than just because they can get taxpayers and party members to pay for their re-selection.

Despite these comments that sort of defend the selection procedure, I do wonder though how we selected some of the people on the lists. Linda Jack, has already admitted that she didn’t try to get selected, and yet she came second in Eastern Region, although incidentally, having met Linda for the first time in recent weeks I reckon she would make an excellent MEP. Colin Ross, a long-standing friend who has wanted to be an MEP in the West Midlands for many years, who is determined to be an MEP and not an MP, who has campaigned hard to get selected, and who has done a lot for the party in the region over many years, only managed 4th. Now I know that I am biased because it is one of my own friends who has not performed as well as I would have hoped, but it does seem quite odd as the mantra of all party activists is that you have to campaign hard to get elected. In this election, it has almost seemed as though campaigning is counterproductive and you’d have been better off sat at home doing nothing for two months.

So the only reason I can come up for the selections is fame. Whilst Colin is relatively well known in his region, maybe he is not as those who came higher up the list such as Phil Bennion, Susan Juned and Liz Lynne. A similar thing happened in Yorkshire, where James Monaghan, who ran a good campaign and tried hard to get selected, came fifth for his efforts. It appears that with such a huge region, where you are not permitted to post anything as a part of your campaign and where you are never going to get close to meeting the majority of the membership, you only win by being famous. The best parallel I can come up with is the party’s own leadership election, where in previous contests Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell won probably largely because they were the best known candidates rather than because they ran good campaigns. This time I suspect the fame of the leadership contenders is more evenly matched. So to get selected you can be famous, competent and be a good campaigner (see Jonathan Fryer and Catherine Bearder) but most of all you have to be famous.

My final thoughts though on the European candidate selection come from the phone canvassing I did for Ed Maxfield and Colin Ross. Phone canvassing is usually a good indicator of support for someone, but I found that much of what I did this time told me nothing when people don’t know any of the candidates. In a public election, people have some idea as to whether they are Conservative, Labour or Lib Dem. In an internal selection, you don’t have people saying “I’m a convinced Maxfieldite, in fact I come from a long line of them. Did you know that my Mum delivered leaflets for him in the 1918 election?” So with every person you are starting almost from scratch. They may well have heard of your candidate, but they don’t know who else is standing until they get the ballot paper. So although they tell you on the phone that they will vote for your candidate as you are the only person to bother, that changes when they get the ballot paper and recognise other names too. In public elections, you have usually had leaflets from all of the candidates by the time it comes for you to vote. Perhaps in internal selections we need an early mailing to tell people that a selection is happening shortly, who the candidates are and some artwork from each one. This can then be followed up at the end of the campaign with the ballot paper and another piece of literature from each candidate. In the meantime each candidate can do whatever campaigning they want as long as it doesn’t breach an expenses rule and it doesn’t defame another candidate (although how you determine what is defamation and what is fair comment would be a nightmare, just look at the comments made by people about Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg so far). I have seen a selection done like this once before and it showed who were the real campaigners and who weren’t, and the result at the end of it was a fair one, with the famous candidates doing well, but with a previously unknown campaigner running them very close.

COLIN ROSENSTIEL: Liberal Democrat internal election results