European Selection: the first order of business for the Returning Officer

The disadvantage of my increasing distance from the Party’s central bureaucracy is that I don’t really know what they’re up to. This may be a good thing in some ways, but advances in administration do happen without me and unless you may an effort to stay ‘in the loop’, there is a danger that you act on the basis of obsolete guidance.

Accordingly, I’ve asked the Senior Returning Officer for the European selection (he co-ordinates stuff and deals with issues that transcend individual Regions, amongst other things) whether or not the Rules have changed from 2012. I’m led to believe that, as far as I’m concerned, not much has changed but we’ll see about that shortly.

In the meantime, and assuming that these bits haven’t changed, what am I expected to do as Returning Officer?

I will;

• Support the shortlisting committee through the selection process
• Protect the interests of members
• Ensure the fair and equal treatment of candidates
• Ensure that the selection rules are followed

I am also required to brief the relevant Regional Executive on the selection process before the appointment of the shortlisting committee (can I do that via Skype?).

So, it looks like my first task is to contact the Secretary of London Liberal Democrats and find out when they next meet. I wonder who that is these days?...

European Selections: could these be the most open ones for a generation?

Being a European Parliamentary candidate for the Liberals and then Liberal Democrats has seldom been easy. Before the advent of list elections, it was not until the 1994 elections that a Liberal Democrat was elected (there were two of them – Graham Watson and Robin Teverson). And so, when list elections were introduced for the 1999 European Parliamentary elections, European selections began to really matter, and not just in places of traditional liberal strength.

With as many as eleven candidates to be elected in some Regions, achieving 12% of the vote across a European Region would probably be enough to get you elected, should you be lucky enough to be on top of the list. Indeed, with the use of the D’Hondt system of proportional representation, in some Regions, electing two Liberal Democrats was a possibility (South East, for example). The selections really mattered, and were fiercely contested as a result.

There was a small catch though, one which only began to emerge in the course of the next selection, which took place in 2002. The incumbent MEP had a huge advantage, with a budget to issue annual mailings to members (some of which were conveniently timed to go out just before the campaign phase) and a profile that made it hard to envisage them being defeated in a selection contest.

As it turned out, it wasn’t hard to beat them – it was impossible. And with the curious fact that, as a pro-European political party, we tend to underperform in regional list elections (and one could go on for hours about why that is), it meant that other applicants were contending to be the ones that didn’t get elected (unless the incumbent subsequently fell under a bus post-election). Interest began to fade, to the extent that, in 2012, there wasn’t much interest in candidacy. Indeed, in the East of England, where I chaired the shortlisting committee, there were so few applicants that they were all waved through to the membership ballot.

This time, it will be different. There will be no incumbents, and few of the ex-MEPs are expected to run (there are exceptions, I’m led to believe, but I don’t have any firm knowledge and, as a Returning Officer, I don’t see why I should promote them anyway). So, there is every possibility that new names may emerge and end up as Liberal Democrat MEPs. That means, potentially, more competition, on the basis that “it might be you”.

There are other factors in play too. The Party is far more conscious of the need to have more diverse candidates than it was in 1997 – gender was considered, but not ethnicity, for example. The evidence of the Spring Conference in York is that the mood of the Party has become more determined on that front.

So, as a Returning Officer, I expect to have a rather tougher job than I might have had in, say, 2012. How much tougher is, I guess, up to the membership…

Want to be a Liberal Democrat candidate for the 2019 European election? Not on the approved candidates list yet? You need to move fast!

It is hard to believe that, if all goes well, the advert seeking applications for consideration as a Liberal Democrat candidate for 2019 will go live in less than eleven weeks. Yes, less than eleven weeks. How do I know this? Because I've got the schedule, and I'm one of the Returning Officers (London, for those who didn't read yesterday's post - and it disappoints me how many of you don't hang on my every word...).

Given that so many of our members only joined the Party in the month after the May 2015 disaster, they are only now becoming eligible to attend a candidate development day and gain approval (strictly, if I recall correctly, you need to have renewed your membership to be eligible to attend such a development day, although you can submit the paperwork before then). So, for all of those keen, probably young, people, time is of the essence.

However, regardless of your age, or length of membership, if you want to be a European candidate in 2019, you perhaps ought to start thinking about it now. Yes, I know that there are Police and Crime Commissioner elections, Assembly elections in London and Wales, and Parliamentary elections in Scotland, plus local elections in scattered locations across the English counties, and I would be the last to suggest that anyone should lose focus on those, or even the European referendum that follows but, if you do want to be a contender, a small investment of time spent coming up with a strategy that will guide your moves over the months to come might help you achieve a good result.

If you aren't on the approved list, the earlier you get your application form in, the better. Regional and State Candidates Chairs will need to organize development days, and the more notice they have of likely demand, the better, for you, and for them. Remember, a development day is not that easy to organize, or prepare for, and you may only get one shot at it to meet the deadline for this selection (you can, of course, have another go in time for the Westminster selections that will follow).

So, contact Candidates Office at Party HQ, ask them to send you the forms and make sure that you fill them in and return them promptly. My fellow Returning Officers and I look forward to welcoming you to the wonderful world of European candidate selections...

I, the Returning Officer for the aforesaid Regional List...

And so, it can, apparently, be told. A schedule for the selection of our European Parliament regional candidates lists for 2019 has been agreed, and Returning Officers are being appointed.

There will be those of you who might think that this is all a bit premature, especially given the small detail of the referendum on 23 June, and you may well be right. However, any advert isn't due to be published until after that, so in the event that there is a vote to leave the European Union, not so much effort is wasted. It is, I think, probably better to be prepared on the basis of optimism.

European selections have been a thread of activity during my time as a faceless Party bureaucrat. I ran my first one in 1989, and have been involved in every round subsequently. In 1997, I was Returning Officer for the South East region, when seventy-two applicants came forward for what turned out to be eleven places on a list and, eventually, two seats in the European Parliament. It would be fair to say that it wasn't an easy selection, but I was lucky enough to have a shortlisting committee who were a joy to work with.

I was back in 2002, which was rather easier, and then 2007, a selection made simpler in many ways by the fact that I met and proposed to Ros in the middle of it. It would be fair to say that both shortlisting committee and the candidates encountered a more generous than usual Returning Officer...

By 2012, I was in a new Region and a new role, as Chair of the East of England shortlisting committee. It was a very straightforward job - we never met, and agreed to wave all of the applicants through to the all-member ballot.

It won't be that easy this time. We will surely do better than we did in 2014 (it can't possibly be that bad, can it?), which means there is the potential for gains in regions such as London, the South West and the North West. Without incumbents, contests will be, potentially, far more open, making the job of Returning Officers rather more challenging.

And so I'm back, from Outer Space, in my newly appointed role as the Returning Officer for London. I'm looking forward to working with a new shortlisting committee, and to meeting a bunch of interesting candidates. I'm probably a gentler Returning Officer than I once was, and it could be fun. Time to start preparations, I suspect...