Labour has learnt no lessons from the Jared O'Mara disaster
When Corbynista Jared O’Mara MP resigned from the Labour Party last July following an embarrassing and drawn out scandal, it was assumed that we’d heard the last of him. He had been a liability to Labour, but as an independent MP surely the opportunities to disgrace himself would be few and far between.
To hold on to his circa £80,000 a year salary for the rest of the parliamentary term, all he had to do was keep his head down, delegate casework to his staff, and turn up once a fortnight to constituency surgeries. Sadly for the people of Sheffield Hallam, he didn’t manage it.
In April, it was reported that O’Mara shut down his office for a month after all of his staff were either fired or quit – and in a chirpy statement to the Yorkshire Post he explained that he would be unable to hold constituency surgeries or respond to phone calls or correspondence for around four weeks.
Four staffless months later the MP for Sheffield Hallam finally announced that he would be “tendering [his] resignation via the official parliamentary procedure as soon as term restarts” after it emerged that he had sent sent inappropriate messages to one of his female employees. This was, of course, the right decision, and commentators from all sides of the political spectrum agreed to leave him alone to work through his personal and mental health issues in private. The sorry tale of the rise and fall of Jared O’Mara seemed, finally, to be over.
But no. In an unexpected and unprecedented twist this week the BBC revealed that the MP for Sheffield Hallam has now asked the Treasury to ‘postpone’ the resignation until a date as yet unconfirmed.
It is hard to think of a better advertisement for properly scrutinising potential parliamentary candidates than Jared O’Mara.. Since being elected he has ricocheted from disaster to disaster. As a sitting MP, he has verbally abused a constituent who rejected him; goaded his entire office into resigning; sent inappropriate texts to a 19 year old female employee, and, most recently, been arrested on suspicion of fraud. Yet, unless he goes to prison, the people of Sheffield Hallam don’t have the option to remove him from the seat. Once an MP is in, he or she is in for good.
So, has Labour learnt its lesson?
Apparently not. This week, the Party decided that its ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) will now shortlist candidates directly, rather than via the longer – and more rigorous – process of selection committees. The move will favour candidates from the far left with strong ties to unions and the Labour leadership, and Jeremy Corbyn is clearly hoping that it will give him an even firmer grasp on the Party.
But in his rush to recruit true believers, the Labour leader seems to have forgotten that representing a British constituency in Parliament is a huge responsibility – and being a fervent believer in Jeremy Corbyn does not necessarily equip a person for the task.
The people of Sheffield Hallam, just like everyone else in Britain, have the right to be represented in Parliament. But because of Labour’s failure to scrutinise its candidates, they have had to forgo that right for nearly a year. If other constituencies are to avoid the same fate, Labour must reconsider its selection process – and fast.
