Good news on letting new members vote in party selections

I’ve often blogged about why it is a good idea to let new members vote in party selections – rather than enforcing the widespread rule that someone has to be a member for 12 months before they can vote. At the moment that would mean a third of the party’s membership is disenfranchised. However I’ve been a little remiss in reporting on the welcome move before Christmas by the English Party in temporarily changing the rules across the board for English internal selections.

The change covers selections in England for local councils, Police and Crime Commissioners, Mayors, Parliament and the European Parliament. It also covers elections for local party posts in England.

The way the rule has been changed is temporary, by changing the date in a clause that was there to deal with transition issues years ago: “amend paragraph 9.2 of the membership rules to replace the words ’26 November 2005′ with ’21 November 2015′.” This means that people who have been members continuously since before 21 November 2015 may vote in one of those contests. As before, members whose subscriptions are no more than three months overdue are entitled to attend any members’ meeting but shall only be eligible to vote if they pay their overdue subscription before the date on which applications close.

The reason for the temporary nature of the change is that it is a simple and quick interim solution whilst the party’s wider reviews into how the we are organised are carried out.

So, this time it’s a case of ‘nicely done, English Party’.