How to fix an election, Conservative Party style
Written by Mark Pack on 4th April 2008 – 8:10 amFull credit to ConservativeHome for reporting in depth on the gory details of how the Conservative Party’s powers-that-be fixed their selections so as to protect their MEPs from their members (the latter generally being much more Euro-sceptic than the former, which could have resulted in widespread deselections).
Highlights include:
1. Conservative members were banned from voting sitting MEPs off the top of their lists; instead, decisions on this were taken by regional candidates committees. (By contrast, the Liberal Democrats put MEPs into the same all-member postal ballots as all the other candidates, with members being free to rank them in any order they wished.)
2. Official hustings meetings were banned. (By contrast, the Liberal Democrats organised official hustings meetings and also gave all MEPs and other candidates the chance to take part in an online hustings.)
3. MEPs and candidates were banned from attending party events in the three months running up to close of the postal ballot. (Yes, really.) (By contrast, the Liberal Democrats actively encouraged MEPs and other candidates to attend party events, including asking local parties to advertise their events via www.flocktogether.org.uk so that they could easily find out about them.)
4. MEPs and candidates had to use a pro forma CV for their official selection leaflet. (By contrast, the Liberal Democrats allowed people to layout their leaflets however they liked.)
5. The Returning Officer instructed MEPs and candidates on what they should say when asked questions about their political views:
When ConservativeHome.com asked candidates a series of questions about their political beliefs some candidates were initially instructed not to answer. CCHQ then relented but John Maples MP, Head of the Candidates Department [and also Returning Officer], issued suggested answers for all candidates to use. Several candidates replied to us with the exact answers that they had been supplied with and undoubtedly won brownie points from the powers-that-be as a result.
(The Returning Officers in the Liberal Democrats were not party staff and no instructions on how to answer questions from members were issued.)
6. Turnout figures were kept secret. (They were published by the Liberal Democrats.)
And it goes on and on.
What does this all say about the actual commitment to democracy in some of the senior ranks of the Conservative Party? It looks like a case of “Democracy? Only if it’ll give us the result we want”.
Posted in Opposition watch
4th April 2008 at 9:27 am
This whole episode heaps shame on CCHQ. I cannot believe that they even considered this kind of vote manipulation, yet they seem to think that normal standards of democracy don’t apply to them.
http://lettersfromatory.wordpress.com
4th April 2008 at 9:38 am
Pfff. Plus ca change. Labour appears to be going the exact same way, with both the ‘traditional parties of government’ choosing candidates by their loyalty to party leadership and making policy decisions based on what they think will win them more votes (as opposed to principles, integrity, a sense of justice or similar ‘old fashioned’ ideas).
What we need to do is make sure the Lib Dems never go down the same road but continue to respect the rational deliberative process of true politics and the right of our members and representatives to have divergent opinion. If the Lab/Tories get much worse, in a few years time this concept will sound ‘revolutionary’.
4th April 2008 at 9:38 am
I wonder if Sajj Karim would have been so keen to defect to the Tories without the rule preventing sitting MEPs from being deselected.
Since he’s strongly pro-European and had been attacking the Conservatives all over the place just weeks before his defection, I’d suspect not.
But I guess from the Conservatives’ point of view that might be plus: we all get a warm glow when there’s a defection to our party, so rules that encourage defections to you would have their benefits.
4th April 2008 at 9:47 am
Presumably the Tory Command feared a brutal cull of every remotely pro-Euro MEP. And while Tory Command would have personally liked that, they probably realise that it would be disaster just before a round of local elections…
4th April 2008 at 11:57 am
Sajj Karim wasn’t deselected: he remained in the same place on the ballot as 2004.
4th April 2008 at 1:47 pm
Biscit: I hope I didn’t suggest otherwise. I wasn’t saying he was deselected by the Lib Dems, just that he would have been unlikely to join the Tories if Conservative members had been allowed to select some long-standed committed Conservative candidate above him.
4th April 2008 at 3:19 pm
Sorry.
4th April 2008 at 5:08 pm
This Conservative exercise seems to have been very like the Iranian system of ensuring that only fully on-message candidates can present themselves; but rather better organised than the latest Iranian effort. I expect that the Iranian authorities will study the details with interest.
Can someone remind us if Cameron commented on the Iranian elections?
5th April 2008 at 8:13 am
Now why go supporting the fruitloops in their efforts to get 30 Roger Helmers into the EP?
1. Liberal Democrats aren’t exactly in tune with the Helmers on the EU issue and 2. 30 of them, showing off at IWAR rallies and Telegraph columns and not focussing on knuckling down to committee work, would be bad for British interests.
16th April 2008 at 3:08 am
Hello Canmerica! How obvious does the Con party need to be before CDN’s smell the stench of Bush type tactics lurking behind every comment and political move? The Karl Rove playbook is being used to the hilt. Seems with all of the confusion in todays environment its ok to run roughshod over democracy. Now we have American style election fraud, slowly seeping in. Sickening.
Sell off the Canadarm too? Hey why not? We’re too weak to have national pride. Didn’t we learn from the embarrassment of the Arrow fiasco? I’m ashamed to be CDN again.