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Since 1922, the Labour Party's main figurehead and candidate for Prime Minister has been the person elected to be Leader of the Labour Party. There have been a total of fifteen Leaders since 1922, as well as four acting Leaders. The current Leader, Keir Starmer, was elected by Labour members, affiliated members and registered supporters in a one-person-one-vote election earlier this year; but not every Labour Leader was elected this way.
In this article I'll take a brief look at the different electoral systems used to elect the Leader of the Labour Party since the position was created in 1922:
- Elected by MPs (1922-1980)
- Elected by delegates and trade unions voting in an Electoral College (1983-1992)
- Elected by members, affiliates and MPs/MEPs voting in an Electoral College (1994-2010)
- One Person, One Vote (2015-present)
Elected by MPs (1922-1980)
Prior to 1983, only Labour Members of Parliament (MPs) could vote in leadership elections. MPs voted using the "exhaustive ballot" system, whereby if one candidate did not win a majority of votes in the first ballot, a second ballot would be held in which the lowest-polling candidate would not be able to stand. If a candidate again failed to win a majority, a third round would be held in which the lowest-polling candidate could not stand, and so on and so forth until somebody won a majority.
Of the 15 Labour Leaders, 8 were elected by Labour MPs, with two Leaders (Arthur Henderson and George Lansbury) elected unopposed. Of the 6 contested leadership elections in 1922-1980, only two elections were vaguely close:
- 1922: Ramsay MacDonald won by a margin of 5 votes (4.2%).
- 1980: Michael Foot won by a margin of 10 votes (3.7%)
Electoral College (1983-1992)
In 1981, Labour Party conference voted to change the system for electing the Leader. Now, instead of being elected by MPs, the Leader would be elected at Labour Party conference by Constituency Labour Party (CLP) delegates, MPs / MEPs and trade unions.
However, instead of all of the votes contributing equally to the result (as they do now), these three groups (unions, CLPs and MPs / MEPs) would make up a particular share of the overall result. Votes cast by trade unions would make up 40% of the result, votes from CLPs would make up 30%, and votes from MPs / MEPs would make up 30% of the result.
If no candidate won a majority of the overall Electoral College result in the first ballot, a second ballot would be held, and a third, and a fourth etc., until somebody won a majority.
The first Leader elected using this system was Neil Kinnock in 1983, who won 73% of the vote with trade unions, 92% of the vote with CLP delegates and 49% of the vote with MPs / MEPs. When the overall result was calculated, Kinnock thus won 71% of the Electoral College result in the first ballot.
The Electoral College system did not produce any particularly unusual results in leadership elections - Kinnock won a clear victory in all three sections of the party in 1983 and 1988, as did John Smith in 1992.
However, the system was also used to elect the Deputy Leader, and the 1981 deputy leadership election is an interesting demonstration of how the electoral system can affect the result.
As the table above shows, when Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the deputy leadership in 1981, he won an overwhelming majority amongst CLP delegates. However, the trade unions overwhelmingly backed Healey, as did the PLP. As a result, Benn narrowly lost to Healey in the second ballot in the overall Electoral College result.
Electoral College (1994-2010)
After John Smith became Labour Leader in 1992, Labour Party conference voted to make some changes to the Electoral College system. First, the Leader would no longer be elected at conference, but would instead be elected through a postal ballot of members, members of affiliated trade unions and MPs / MEPs. Second, each section's share of the Electoral College would be equal at 33.33% (instead of unions having 40% and the other two sections having 30%).
The first Leader elected using this system was Tony Blair in 1994. Gordon Brown would have been elected using this system, but as he recieved nominations from over 90% of Labour MPs / MEPs, he was elected unopposed.
The 2010 leadership election was the first time that one section of the party had voted for a different candidate than the other two sections. In this instance, members and MPs / MEPs voted for David Miliband in the final round, but members of affiliated trade unions and other affiliates voted for Ed Miliband. Ed Miliband went on to win in the overall Electoral College result by a margin of 0.7pts.
The 1994-2010 Electoral College was notable as being the first time that a major British political party had allowed individual party members, and members of affiliated trade unions and other affiliates, to vote in a leadership election. In 1994, nearly 1 million people voted in the Labour Party's leadership election, with Tony Blair winning a total of 508,148 individual votes - the most of any person to ever become Labour Leader.
One Person, One Vote (2015-present)
In 2014, a specially organised Labour conference voted to introduce a new system for electing the Labour Party Leader. There were three main changes made.
Firstly, all votes cast in the leadership election would now count equally towards the result, with no weighting. Secondly, members of affiliated unions would now need to specifically register for a vote in the leadership election, instead of being given a vote automatically. Finally, UK voters who were not party members would be able to register for a vote in the leaderhip election by paying a small amount of money and stating that they agreed with the values of the Labour Party.
The first Leader elected using this system was Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. He was succeeded in 2020 by Keir Starmer.
The number of votes cast by party members in 2020 was 401,521 - the most votes cast by party members in any leadership election in British history (although the total turnout across all sections of the party was slightly lower than in the 2016 leadership election).
The graph below shows the turnout amongst Labour party members from 1994-2020.
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