The announcements are made and the endorsements are in - and it promises to be quite the race to be named as Labour ’s candidate for the new Bristol North East seat in Parliament.
Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees has won the backing of every single union affiliate branch in the new constituency, but it may not be a straightforward procession for Mr Rees from the city’s directly-elected mayor to parliament.
The first and only affiliate organisation to hold a hustings and allow its members to choose who it will be backing in the race has done so - and the current Mayor of Lewisham Damien Egan comfortably won that vote. But ultimately, it will be around 800 paid-up members of the Labour Party in the new constituency, most of whom live in Eastville, Hillfields and Fishponds, who will decide who should be the candidate to fight the next election.
Read next: Marvin Rees confirms bid to stand as MP in new Bristol North East constituency
With the Boundary Commission taking the next step to creating the new Bristol North East constituency this week, a timeline has emerged for selecting the Labour candidate in what is widely thought will be a fairly safe Labour seat.
The area comprises the Bristol suburbs of Lockleaze, Eastville, Fishponds, Hillfields and Staple Hill, and also across the South Gloucestershire border to include New Cheltenham and Kingswood.
In the middle of June, Mr Rees - who will step down in his role at the May 2024 local elections when the post he will have held for eight years is abolished - announced formally that he would be seeking to be the parliamentary candidate for the new Bristol seat.
In a campaign video that is currently his ‘pinned tweet’ on Twitter, Mr Rees outlined his achievements as Mayor of Bristol, listing everything from the City LEAP deal to house building and keeping libraries open.
“My politics has grown out of growing up in our area,” he said, in front of a range of backdrops and locations around the Bristol North East constituency. “Through all those years, I’ve lived the best and worst of what Bristol has to offer. At its worst, it was a city that seemed to offer me very little hope, and I wondered what lay before me, if anything at all, of worth.
“And yet at its best, Bristol is a city that gave me the opportunity to become a leader, and to really put Labour values into practice, and those are values that are captured by our ambition for the city but also our compassion to make sure everyone has an opportunity to share in the city’s success.
“And that’s given us the opportunity to really make a difference in people’s lives.We can work together to build this Bristol North East constituency and that means growing our membership, it means making sure our candidates are elected to Bristol City Council, and South Gloucestershire.
“I would truly be honoured to be your candidate in the next election, and ultimately to become your MP. Working together we can make sure that we get the electoral win for the Labour Party and the Labour Government that our city and our country so urgently need,” he added.
Endorsements for Mr Rees came quickly. City councillors who are part of his team said they supported him, including Eastville councillor Marley Bennett, who described it as ‘great news’. “Marvin would be a brilliant MP for the new Bristol North East constituency, which includes Eastville. He has my support,” he said.
Perhaps the most influential supporter for the Mayor’s bid to continue his political career in parliament is Kerry McCarthy. She’s currently the Bristol East MP and her constituency presently covers the Bristol half of the new Bristol North East one. “Sad to be losing a third of my constituency in boundary changes - Eastville, Frome Vale and Hillfields - but couldn’t ask for a better person to take over,” she said, backing Mr Rees.
But Marvin Rees is not the only person wanting to be the Labour candidate for Bristol North East. So far, Kingswood councillors Leigh Ingham and Sean Rhodes have both indicated they were putting their names forward, as has Bristol Labour activist Kaz Self.
Perhaps the most high profile candidate is Damien Egan, who grew up in Kingswood and Staple Hill, and is currently the directly-elected Mayor of Lewisham in south east London, a position basically similar to that of Marvin Rees.
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He has moved to Fishponds and is already attracting endorsements locally. The last Labour MP for Kingswood, Roger Berry, is backing Mr Egan. “I’m delighted that Damien is keen to stand as the Labour candidate for Bristol North East,” said the man who served as MP for half the new constituency for 18 years until 2010.
“He knows the constituency very well, having lived in Fishponds and Staple Hill, attended school here and won his first election as a local councillor here. Damien also has had massive experience as a two-term elected Mayor. I’d feel extremely privileged to have Damien as my MP and am sure that feeling would be widely shared throughout the constituency,” he added.
Just as Mr Rees’ announcement was followed by a flurry of endorsements from political allies, so was Mr Egan’s with a queue of Labour councillors in Lewisham backing their man, even though it would mean their leader would presumably have to stand down as mayor there.
Other Labour heavyweights also endorsed Mr Egan, including former cabinet minister Dame Joan Ruddock. “Great news Damien Egan has just launched his campaign to be the parliamentary candidate for the new seat of Bristol North East where he was brought up,” she tweeted. “Damien is a formidable campaigner who will be a great asset to the parliamentary Labour Party,” she added.
And some Labour people who have served under Marvin Rees have also backed Mr Rees’ main rival. Mhairi Threlfall is a former Eastville councillor, two-time parliamentary candidate and was a member of Marvin Rees’ cabinet at City Hall. “Ecstatic that my friend Damien is putting himself forward for Bristol North East!” she tweeted.
“This new seat is very close to my heart having stood in Kingswood, Filton and Bradley Stoke and as councillor for Eastville. Damien was raised in the constituency and is what strong inclusive leadership looks like. I’ve seen him work within and cross party to get things done in local government, he engages constructively with the press and earns the trust of those he works with,” she added.
The battle has so far been conducted at arms length - none of the candidates know if they've even made the short-list yet. But it is already looking like it could be a fiercely-contested one. While Marvin Rees' campaign announcement on social media was met with plenty of ringing endorsements, it also attracted more than the usual level of trolling and hatred he receives as the city's mayor. And Damien Egan is experiencing that too - since he announced he was putting his name forward, someone has been changing his Wikipedia page, and he also found an anonymous copycat Twitter account had been set up in his name.
The process
Ultimately it matters little what councillors, MPs or party grandees say, other than to sway opinion. It will only be around 800 members of the Labour Party who actually live in the new Bristol North East constituency that will decide.
And that decision will be made through a process being run by Kelvin Blake, who is the chair of the biggest Labour Party branch in the constituency, the one that covers Eastville, Frome Vale and Hillfields. Around 550 of the 800 members live in that branch alone, and given that it’s a Bristol Labour and therefore a Marvin Rees heartland, the present Mayor of Bristol is a clear favourite for good reason - there are many more members there than in the whole of the South Gloucestershire half of the constituency.
That’s something Damien Egan conceded in an interview on BBC Radio Bristol on Friday. After the radio station had presented the battle to be the Labour candidate as a 'Mayor-off' between Mr Egan and Mr Rees, the returning London mayor said: “I appreciate I’m not the favourite, so I know that obviously, going into this,” he said. “But, talking to people, there are a lot of people who say there’s a better way to do politics.
“At least I come with a record, so it’s not like people come and say ‘who’s this person?’ they can come to me and look at what I’ve done, and hopefully they’ll look at that and think that’s good and they’ll want someone from the local area. I think that does come through a lot, that people want someone that knows Bristol North East," he added.
Mr Blake, who has been appointed as the chair of the panel that is running the selection process, told Neil Maggs on the Bristol Unpacked podcast this week that he didn’t see a conflict of interest that he has twice been Marvin Rees’ campaign manager and election agent.
“Within the Labour Party the rules are that we form a selection committee. I chair the biggest branch Eastville, Frome Vale and Hillfields, and I wasn’t appointed - my colleagues elected me as the chair,” he said. “I’ve been encouraging as many good people as possible to apply for the role to become the MP, so I’ve not backed Marvin in this election.
“I did stand against him in 2012. I rate Marvin, I think he’s a good person and he’s done great things for our city, but equally I want the best person for this role, so I’m encouraging of people that have come forward, I’ve been open and honest with them about wanting the best people to apply for it. All I can do is reassure people that I’m open-minded about it, and I am totally open-minded,” he said.
That process will now take place gradually - it will occupy all of July. Every candidate has to be interviewed by Labour HQ in London to get onto a long list, which will then be cut to a ‘short list’ by Mr Blake’s selection committee, through a series of more interviews next weekend. The short-listed candidates will then be given sight of a list of the members of the Labour Party who actually get a vote, so they’ll be able to knock on doors or phone people up and present themselves to them. There’s then, on the last Sunday of July, a hustings at which all the candidates and all the members can attend, with a vote following that.
So far, there’s only been one tiny test of members, and it came in a hustings organised by the Labour Movement for Europe, an organisation within Labour that’s based in the constituency. They held an online hustings which saw speeches from Marvin Rees and Damien Egan, and their members - albeit a relatively small group - voted overwhelmingly that the group should endorse Mr Egan’s candidacy.
