Doina Cornell, the Labour leader of Stroud council, has been deemed “not suitable” to be included on the long-list for the selection of the Parliamentary candidate for Stroud. This is an extraordinary bureaucratic decision which has outraged local party members. Doina is a very well liked and much respected local leader. In her video announcing that she was standing to be Labour candidate she said that she had been asked by local members to stand. We can believe her if she says that. You can visit her website here. A supporter of council housing you can read an article from Labourlist by her here.
I’m pleased to say that Doina is challenging this decision. She is asking Stroud CLP members to sign a letter calling for the decision to be overturned. Her statement says:
“The Labour Party longlisting panel has made the decision not to include me on the longlist for the selection of the next parliamentary candidate for Stroud constituency. I was the local candidate with a long track record of making the lives of Stroud people better. I’m deeply disappointed that Labour Party representatives who have no local connection, and without consultation with local party members regarding my suitability, have decided to remove me from the contest on what I can only describe as spurious and partisan reasons. I know how frustrating this is for local members who wanted to take part in the full democratic process of selecting their prospective member of Parliament. I ask all members, however frustrated or angry they are, to make their voices heard and ask the Labour Party to reverse this decision and let the members decide who will best represent them as the next member of Parliament for Stroud.”
This decision says much about how the Labour Party conducts its business and its attitude towards its members which I will have something to say about later on, when we see the outcome of Stroud Labour members effort to overturn this decision. However, at this stage I’ll just leave you Keir Starmer’s Tweet from 2020 on the selection of candidates by the Labour Party.
“The selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election.”
Martin Wicks
June 8th 2022
Martin Wicks 