Ed Miliband received a boost yesterday when Labour MPs voted heavily in favour of his plans to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections. The result means that he has achieved something that Tony Blair never dared to attempt.
There was a 92 per cent turnout for the ballot, with 196 MPs voting for the change and 41 against.
Mr Miliband was praised as bold for even trying to overturn a decades-old tradition for Labour in opposition. But the overwhelming vote suggests he may have been pushing at an open door.
A number of Shadow Cabinet members, spokesmen and backbench MPs were quick to praise the result, insisting that it would make the party more likely to reach out to voters.
Mr Miliband said: “This is an excellent result for the party. We have an important job to do in holding the Government to account and preparing for the next election.
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“To do that job properly we need to spend our time talking to the public and not ourselves. Labour under my leadership will be a party that looks outwards and not inwards.”
A party source described how Shadow Cabinet elections in the 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, were “riven with factionalism and groupings”.
“Everyone would campaign quite aggressively to get a place,” he added.
Two weeks ago, Michael Meacher, MP, told a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party about how Neil Kinnock had complained as Labour leader that as soon as one Shadow Cabinet result was announced his colleagues would start campaigning for the next election.
Yesterday a number of new rising stars in the Labour Party spoke out in support of the result. Emma Reynolds, a Shadow Foreign Minister, said that it was a great step forward to “ditch this outdated practice”. Gloria De Piero, in the Shadow Culture, Sports and Media team, argued that it meant that MPs could “devote all our time to focusing on voters and not talking to ourselves”.
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Chuka Umunna, the Shadow Business Minister, agreed, arguing that the priority for Labour should be getting rid of the “Tory-led Government, which is doing damage to society” and not “internal contests”.