Your local MP is now more likely to have local ties than at any time in recent history, with research published by The Sunday Times showing that the number of MPs classed as ‘local’ (being born within their region) has steadily increased from 289 before 2015 to 335 after the 2019 election.
Further research suggests this is a characteristic valued by a considerable amount of the electorate, with recent data showing that voters class a candidate being from the same area as them almost as highly as sharing their political views.
When asked how important they thought local representation was, Dylan Lewis-Creser, University of Sheffield student and Sheffield Young Greens officer, said: “I think having an understanding at least and a connection with the local area is really important because it means you have first-hand experience of the issues that that community might be facing.”
2015 can be seen as a landmark moment for local representation, with 65% of new MPs elected being born locally. Some of this can be attributed to the rise of the SNP in Scotland, but Mx Lewis-Creser was confident that this trend will continue across the UK, believing that it will continue because there has been a “significant push among communities and politicians for localism”.
The idea of localism isn’t all positive, however, with some concern that local issues could become prioritised over national ones, and that we could be cutting down the talent pool if we place too much emphasis on where someone was born as opposed to what views they hold and what skills and experiences they can bring.
The idea of locality being determined on where you are born is also contentious and can often not reflect a candidate’s experiences. For example, the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson was born in New York, but spent long periods of his childhood in the South East of England, the region in which he would first be elected an MP in 2001.
Local representation is particularly common within Labour; analysis by LSE showed that in the 2015 election, of the 100 safest seats won by the party, 58% of winning candidates were born within their region. This is compared to 17% of the top 100 safest Conservative seats. When questioning Mx Lewis-Creser on this they said they believed that, while Labour selects candidates within local Constituency Labour Parties (CLPs), the Conservatives take a more top-down approach. This is seen within the current cabinet, with only 5 MPs that could be considered ‘local’ to their own constituency.
Sheffield Central’s CLP is currently in the process of selecting their next MP after the announcement from the Labour incumbent, Paul Blomfield, that he will stand down at the next election, having first been elected in 2010.
All six longlisted candidates emphasised their connection to the local area in various ways in their campaign videos, ranging from being city councillors to having studied at a university in the city. John Cresswell, a University of Sheffield Journalism student and member of Sheffield Labour Students, said: “[A local MP] is really important, more in particular for places outside of London.”.
Mr Cresswell continued by saying that having a candidate from the local area, while useful, is “not essential” to making sure they do a good job in the local community, arguing that it’s more important that they live in the local area.
CLPs are also known for having tension at selection meetings on this issue. Local examples include the 2012 Rotherham by-election, when dozens of party members walked out of the final selection meeting in protest over local candidates not being involved in the shortlist.
More recently, this summer’s Wakefield by-election attracted criticism when several local figures were, again, passed over for the shortlist in favour of two shortlisted candidates born outside of the area. Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) argued Kate Dearden and the eventual winner Simon Lightwood had “strong connections with the local community”, and that this was standard practice in by-elections. Mx Lewis-Creser said: “There’s a really big difference between having a candidate imposed by national bodies, as it was in Wakefield, compared to local party members from that area choosing a candidate who happens to not be from that area.”
Sheffield Central Labour members will decide over the next few weeks who their candidate for the next election will be, but with concern growing nationally around tight control of candidates by national bodies, their decision will no doubt receive more attention than normal.
Image: UK Parliament via Wikimedia Commons.
