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Labour may be forced to scrap all-women shortlists for parliamentary candidates as more than half its MPs are now female.
Leaked papers from the party’s national executive committee show it has formally decided to stop using the shortlists for the first time since 1997. That year, when Tony Blair entered Downing Street, 101 female Labour candidates – dubbed ‘Blair’s babes’ – were elected using all-women shortlists.
Women now account for 51 per cent of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). Under the Equality Act, all-women shortlists can only be used where females are under-represented. The leaked documents state: ‘Legal advice suggests that now the PLP is majority women (in no small part because of the great success of all-women shortlists), it will not be possible to use positive action in favour of women for selections in the run-up to the next general election.’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The party
