Deselection

Deselection in British politics refers to the refusal of a local party association to continue supporting a candidate who had previously been elected under their banner. The practice is relatively rare in Parliamentary elections. It can occur for a variety of reasons: the three most common explanations are where boundary changes have merged the power bases of two Members, where the Member is felt to be too old to continue to represent the seat effectively, and where political differences have opened up between the Member and their association. In a few cases, Members who have been deselected have subsequently been re-elected as an Independent candidate or for another party.

Background

Prior to the introduction of the secret ballot between 1872 and 1885, there was no need for local associations formally to select a candidate. The fact that the poll was in public meant that the state of the poll was known and so it was not possible for rival candidates to accidentally 'split the vote' and let the seat be taken by on a minority.

When the secret ballot came in, local political associations began to hold private meetings before the poll to choose between those who wished to represent the party. The winner of this ballot would then receive official endorsement in the form of supportive speeches from their party's national figures, letters of endorsement, and the assistance of a campaign team. Where the loser of such a ballot decided to contest the election despite not having official endorsement, they often received a derisory vote: for example, in Paddington South in 1885, the official Liberal candidate Hilary Skinner won 1,025 votes, while his defeated Alderman Lawrence had only 290.

The procedure when a sitting Member came to be renominated was normally a formality. A legal technicality not repealed until 2005 made a difference between a 'selected prospective candidate' (one who had been picked as the provisional choice for a forthcoming election) and an 'adopted candidate' (one who had definitely been chosen to fight the election): campaigning by the former did not count towards a limit on election spending. Sitting Members would not have to go through a selection procedure but would merely be adopted on the eve of an election, by which time it was divisive to open up a debate on their merits, and it would be too late to pick an alternative. Readoption was usually unanimous, as a way of expressing confidence in a sitting Member.

In the 1886 general election the value of this system was appreciated as a large number of Liberal MPs had seceded from the leadership of Gladstone and offered themselves as Liberal Unionists. The Conservative Party nationally refused to endorse any Conservative running in opposition to a Liberal Unionist, which ensured a united Unionist vote. Meanwhile many of the Liberal Party's associations attempted to find candidates of their own to run against the Liberal Unionists, on the grounds of their secession from the Party.