merifontain: Miliband seeks Labour rule change

Friday, June 24, 2011

Miliband seeks Labour rule change

A change in the rules would give the Labour leader more room for manoeuvre

Ed Miliband is seeking to change his party's rules so that he can choose who he wants to sit in the shadow cabinet.

The Labour leader has decided his party's MPs should lose the right they currently have to elect the party's top team every two years.

Aides said that, in the past, shadow cabinet elections had distracted Labour from holding the government to account and preparing the party for power.

The change would have to be approved by Labour's party conference this autumn.

Labour MPs will have the chance to debate and vote on the rule change before it is considered by the party's ruling national executive committee next month and then put to the party conference in Liverpool.

The BBC's Deputy Political Editor James Landale said that were it to be approved, it would mark a substantial increase in Mr Miliband's power of patronage over his party.

Last October, Labour held its first shadow cabinet elections since 1996 - with the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper topping the poll.

Mr Miliband then allocated jobs to the 19 MPs who got the most votes.

However, a number of leading figures in the party - most notably former foreign secretary David Miliband - chose not to put themselves forward for election and were therefore ineligible for leading positions.

Shortly before Ed Miliband became leader, the Parliamentary Labour Party rejected proposals to change the shadow cabinet process which would have enabled the leader to choose half or a third of their team.

Frontbench elections have been held while Labour are in opposition for more than 50 years.

Nearly all of the MPs elected in 1996 went on to hold Cabinet positions in Tony Blair's government a year later.

This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.