Among the many announcements at Labour’s landmark NEC (National Executive Committee) meeting yesterday was the decision that the candidate in 46 of Labour’s key ‘marginal’ target seats at the next General Election will be selected from an all-women shortlist (AWS). This measure is expected to achieve the party’s goal of at least fifty percent of its MPs being female.
There has, naturally, been a lot of interest in which 46 will be AWS – and the SKWAWKBOX can now reveal which seats they will be. The seats are listed in order of ‘marginality’:
Pudsey
Chipping Barnet
Norwich N
Telford
Bolton West
Northampton N
Middlesbrough S/Cleveland E
Milton Keynes S
Milton Keynes N
Morecambe and Lunesdale
Putney
Harrow east
Morley & Outwood
Corby
Swindon S
Worcester
Chingford & Woodford Green
Reading W
Derbyshire NE
Carlisle
Southport
Rossendale & Darwen
Truro & Falmouth
Walsall N
Stevenage
Filton & Bradley Stoke
Shipley
Erewash
Worthing E & Shoreham
Nuneaton
Colchester
Wimbledon
Plymouth Moor View
Shrewsbury & Atcham
Rochford & Southend E
Dover
S Ribble
Rushcliffe
Welwyn Hatfield
York Outer
Stafford
Kings wood
Harlow
Rugby
Redditch
Bournemouth E
Unlike recent selections in which shortlists were decided by an NEC-appointed, usually 3-person panel, local members will control the process in the 76 most marginal seats – a welcome improvement to party democracy.
As the process is expected to begin not long after Labour’s conference, which starts on Sunday, it’s therefore vital that good, local, female candidates come forward without delay for each of the above seats – candidates who are thoroughly behind the party’s direction and on the side of the membership – and similarly-inclined candidates of either gender for the remaining key target seats.
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