Section:GDN 1N PaGe:10 Edition Date:190821 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 20/8/2019 20:09 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Wednesday 21 Au g u st 2019
10Brexit
UK offi cials
to stay away
from most
EU meetings
Labour warned: don’t go
backwards on equality
Jessica Elgot
Jennifer Rankin BrusselsBritish offi cials will stop attending
most European Union meetings from
September, the Brexit secretary, Steve
Barclay, said yesterday, suggesting the
move would free them to focus on the
UK’s departure on 31 October.
The government would now send
offi cials only when the UK had “a
signifi cant national interest in the out-
come of discussions” in areas such as
security, sovereignty, internationalJessica Elgot
Chief political correspondentLabour has been warned it could be
“going backwards on equality”, with
fears that selecting replacements for
some departing female MPs will not
be made using all-women shortlists.
Gloria de Piero and Harriet Harman
expressed their anxiety yesterday,
adding to criticism of the party’s pro-
cedures by Dave Prentis, the Unison
general secretary. In a letter leaked to
the Guardian last week, he accused
the Labour leadership of “trading”
seats intended for female candidates
in order to allow “favourite sons” to
take up the safest Labour seats.
De Piero, who has said she will step
down as the MP for the hyper-marginal
seat of Ashfi eld at the next election,
said she was pleased she would be
replaced using an all-women short-
list, but was angered that was not the
case in other seats.
The MP criticised the selection pro-
cess in Stockport, where the Labour
MP Ann Coff ey defected and a male
candidate was selected last week, and
in Vauxhall where there will not be
an all-women shortlist to replace the
retiring Brexiteer Kate Hoey.
“There have always been circum-
stances where seats with a retiring
woman can be designated open but,
following national executive commit-
tee designation in Stockport, this looks
like we are going backwards on equal-
ity,” she said.
Harman, the former deputy leader,
said the NEC should explain its deci-
sion-making process. “Can we haverelations and finance, and would
instead focus on countries outside
the bloc, Barclay said.
“An incredible amount of time and
eff ort goes into EU meetings, with
attendance just the tip of the iceberg,”
he said. “Our diligent, world-class offi -
cials also spend many hours reading
the necessary papers or working on
briefi ngs. From now on, we will only
go to the meetings that really matter,
reducing attendance by over half and
saving hundreds of hours. This will
free up time for ministers and their
offi cials to get on with preparing forstatement from NEC on this?” she
tweeted. “Policy is all-women short-
lists when replacing woman MPs and
50% in others until we achieve parity.
Has policy changed?”
In 10 seats where MPs have said they
are retiring, half have been allocated
all-women shortlists, including Poplar
and Limehouse in east London which
has a male MP, Jim Fitzpatrick.
A Labour source said the party was
on course to reach 50-50 gender parity
after the next election and 72 women
had been picked so far in the 102 con-
stituencies where selections had taken
place.
A party spokesman said: “The
Labour party has more women MPs
than all other political parties com-
bined. We are committed to improving
diverse representation at all levels of
the party.”
The race to replace Hoey in Vauxhall
has been designated as an open selec-
tion. The south London constituency
is expected to be fi ercely contested,
including by two high-profi le women,
the former MP Katy Clark, who is now
Jeremy Corbyn’s political secretary,
and Laura Parker, the lead organiser
of Momentum.
The Vauxhall constituency Labour
party yesterday tweeted: “We are
extremely disappointed to learn this
morning that the NEC has rejected our
call for an all-women shortlist in selec-
tion of our next MP. Vauxhall members
unanimously passed a motion last
month making this request. We call
on the NEC to respect the decision of
local members.
“We will not stand for a candidate
to be imposed by backdoor means on
the constituency if a snap election is
called. In 1989, the local candidate
Vauxhall members chose was denied
to us and we are determined this does
not happen again.”
A senior NEC source said it was
largely still the case that all-women
shortlists could be used to either block
or promote a favoured candidate, but
there was technically no rule to say
that a seat with a departing female MP
must be replaced by a woman.
The warnings came as concerns
were raised with the party by four
BAME groups associated with Labour–
Chinese for Labour, Sikhs for Labour,
Labour Friends of Somalia and Labour
Black Network – about the number of
ethnic minority candidates who had
been selected. They suggested trade
unions needed to do more to promote
diverse candidates.our departure on 31 October and seiz-
ing the opportunities that lie ahead.”
There move is likely to prompt con-
cerns that British offi cials will be in the
dark about EU strategy, but the Depart-
ment for Exiting the European Union
( DExEU) said most discussions would
be focus ed on the EU after the UK left.
One EU diplomat described the
decision as “stupid” and said: “There
are rules that you could infl uence that
will always have an impact on you
whatever happens .”
DExEU said decisions on meetings
attended would be made case by case.National
Politics‘Policy is all-women
shortlists when
replacing woman
MP. Has policy
changed?”Harriet Harman
Former deputy leaderCustoms passes for border
The government will issue customs
passes to thousands of businesses
over the next two weeks to prevent
goods being held up at the UK
border after a no-deal Brexit. Sajid
Javid said giving unique customs
numbers to 88,000 exporters under
the no-deal preparations would
“ease the fl ow of goods at border
points and support businesses to
trade and grow”. Phillip InmanRELEASED BY "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS TELEGRAM: t.me/whatsnws