From i, December 23rd, 2022
Written by Hugo Gye and Arj Singh
Labour has lined up at least eight former MPs to return to Parliament as Sir Keir Starmer prepares to push for power.
The party is in the process of selecting its candidates for all target seats ahead of the general election expected in late 2024.
An unusually large number of ex-MPs, most of whom lost their jobs in the 2019 wipeout, have put their name forward to stand again this time around.
The return to Parliament of experienced politicians would help Sir Keir fill ministerial positions if he leads a government after the next election.
He would need to appoint almost 100 Labour MPs as ministers or whips; currently the party has just 195 MPs, of whom at least a dozen have said they will not seek re-election while more than 30 are members of the pro-Corbyn Socialist Campaign Group and are opposed to Sir Keir’s centre-left policy agenda.
Newly elected MPs are not usually appointed to the front bench for at least two or three years, but if they have previously served in Parliament they can be fast-tracked. A source close to Sir Keir insisted he was happy with his current shadow ministerial team.
Nic Dakin, James Frith, John Grogan, Jo Platt and Gareth Snell have all been reselected to fight the seats they lost in 2019. Former frontbenchers Heidi Alexander and Emma Reynolds have switched constituencies and will contest key targets in the South of England, while Douglas Alexander – a member of the Cabinet under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – has applied to be selected in East Lothian.
Mr Frith told i: “I’m not surprised my former colleagues want to be future MPs. If they are like me, they will have a sense of unfinished business both in parliament and the important constituency work that good MPs do so well. More than this though, the Labour Party has its eyes on returning to government; to change minds in the country to change lives in the country. That’s a magnetism that’s hard to ignore.”
Another candidate added: “Labour selections have certainly become much more competitive in recent months with candidates across the age and experience spectrum putting their names forward. We will certainly need experience both on the front benches but also on the bank benches, particularly if Labour ends up with a small majority or as the largest party.”
Labour left-wingers have accused Sir Keir’s team of manipulating the selection process so that Corbynista candidates are excluded. One former MP, Emma Dent Coad, was blocked from restanding in her old seat of Kensington. The leader’s team insists it is only carrying out basic due diligence.
Sir Keir is expected by Labour insiders to carry out a shadow Cabinet reshuffle in the New Year to refresh his top team and get ready for an election. Also on the agenda is the hiring of a new chief of staff, with the party looking for a senior former civil servant with deep experience of the Government.
Once they are appointed, Sir Keir is expected to write to Rishi Sunak to request talks with the Civil Service to exchange information and establish relationships with senior officials to prepare for the possibility of a Labour government.
Although most Westminster watchers expect an election in 2024, some Labour figures believe that a 2023 snap election is still possible and so the party wants to lay the groundwork for its possible ascent to power.
One senior figure said the shadow Cabinet needs to be carrying out more detailed, coherent policy work or risks being “caught short” under tough questioning in an election campaign when they will be “under the spotlight, under the microscope and under the cosh”.
“Nobody is asking the difficult questions because they are not expected to,” they said.
The veterans seeking a return
Douglas Alexander
The best-known of the former MPs vying to return to Parliament, Mr Alexander represented Paisley & Renfrewshire South from 1997 to 2015, serving in three different Cabinet positions under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He was Ed Miliband’s shadow Foreign Secretary but lost his seat when Labour was almost entirely wiped out in Scotland during the SNP surge. The 57-year-old has applied to be Labour’s candidate in East Lothian, taking on hardline nationalist Kenny MacAskill.
Heidi Alexander
MP for Lewisham East from 2010 to 2018, 47-year-old Ms Alexander quit Parliament during the Jeremy Corbyn era to serve as one of Sadiq Khan’s deputy mayors – having previously complained that Mr Corbyn’s leadership was “inept” after she served in his shadow Cabinet. She is Labour’s candidate in South Swindon, her home town, where she will take on ex-Cabinet minister Sir Robert Buckland in a seat considered a must-win for Sir Keir’s party.
Nic Dakin
Mr Dakin, 67, won the seat of Scunthorpe three times with a narrow majority each time, but was defeated in 2019 by Holly Mumby-Croft as the Conservatives swept across the so-called “red wall”. A pragmatist who resigned from the front bench in protest at Mr Corbyn’s leadership but later returned, he is hoping to win back his old constituency.
James Frith
45-year-old Mr Frith was MP for Bury North for just two years, from 2017 to 2019, and has been planning a fresh run at the seat ever since he was defeated by a margin of just 105 votes. He will take on the Tory incumbent James Daly.
John Grogan
After two separate stints as an MP – for Selby from 1997 to 2010, then for Keighley from 2017 to 2019 – Mr Grogan, 61, is pushing for a third go. He must overturn a majority of 2,218 held by the current Conservative MP Robbie Moore. Earlier this year, he was sanctioned by Vladimir Putin over his support for Ukraine.
Jo Platt
When Andy Burnham left Parliament in 2017, 49-year-old Ms Platt won his seat of Leigh – only to be defeated by the Tories’ James Grundy two years later, the first time in almost a century that Labour had lost the constituency. She is seeking to return in the same seat.
Emma Reynolds
Long marked out as a rising star after entering Parliament in 2010, Ms Reynolds was a frontbencher under Ed Miliband but resigned when Mr Corbyn took over and then lost her Wolverhampton North East seat at the last election. The 45-year-old is pushing for a comeback in Wycombe, a Tory stronghold for decades which has recently been trending towards Labour leaving Steve Baker, the incumbent MP who is one of Parliament’s staunchest Brexiteers, highly vulnerable.
Gareth Snell
Mr Snell, 36, became MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central in a 2017 by-election which was Ukip’s last serious chance of gaining a Commons seat. In 2019, he was defeated by Conservative Jo Gideon but her majority of 670 was one of the smallest anywhere in the country and he is hopeful of winning the constituency back.