"Experience"
Another excuse with which too many BAME members have been presented as to why they have not
been preferred for various leadership or representative positions or candidacies (whether at local or
national level) is a lack of appropriate activist experience. Years of active engagement and/or
leadership in e.g. a local church, mosque, Gurdwara or other community service or activity, are
sometimes thought to be an inadequate alternative to years of door-knocking or attending ward,
branch and constituency meetings. Relevant professional experience may also be over-looked (a
classic example of the kind of stereotyping which I discussed earlier).
Representation
Some members have gained the impression that BAME electoral candidates are somehow only
welcome in areas with a large population from their own particular faith or ethnic group (an
assumption clearly not applied in relation to white candidates). It was further pointed out to me that
there is currently not a single Sikh Labour MP in the House of Commons (Sikhs being a minority
amongst minorities almost everywhere). There is a fairly wide-spread feeling that BAME candidates
are less likely to be selected for parliamentary by-elections in particular. I am not making a finding that
there are informal quotas or caps in place, merely voicing the feelings and frustrations of too many
loyal Labour Party members who have trusted me with their past disappointments but also their
continuing hopes, via the Inquiry process.
The Labour Party has good cause to be proud of having more BAME MPs than any other party, and
that they now constitute over 10 per cent of its contingency in the House of Commons. However, the
proportion of BAME constituents in Labour seats may be as much as double this. So there is surely no
room for complacency. Nor, I think, should anyone feel completely satisfied with only 2 BAME
members out of 24 on the Party's NEC.
"Special Measures"
Labour's Constitution (Chapter 1, Clause VIII, Paragraph 3 A and B) grants the broadest of discretions
to the NEC to effectively suspend local party democracy in a part of the country that has come to
concern in the way business has been conducted. One can understand the need for such a power in
relation to a "party unit" just as there must be the power to suspend or expel individual members who
have brought the Party into disrepute (as discussed above). The NEC must of course be vigilant as to
any suggestions of electoral or membership irregularities or other inappropriate activity in the Party
anywhere in the country. So the discretion allows the NEC to apply what have come to be described as
a broad range of "special measures" in an area, effectively running it via the regional staff and granting
only such democracy and autonomy (e.g. in relation to the convening of meetings and selection of
candidates etc.) as those staff members see fit.
This may be right and necessary as an exceptional measure in principle. However, I have had testimony
that 4 constituencies in central Birmingham have been subject to such a regime for up to 23 years (the
precise dates are unclear), without regular reconsideration by the NEC, nor the creation of any kind of
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