The leader of the Conservative group on Basildon Council in Essex has criticised the decision to effectively impose party chairman Richard Holden as the town’s parliamentary candidate.
Mr. Holden, 39, worked in Conservative Party central office between 2007 and 2015, working his way up from data entry office to deputy head of press, and was elected as the Tory MP for North West Durham in the December 2019 election.
The constituency, deep in the heart of the so-called Red Wall of pro-Brexit Labour strongholds, has been abolished in the latest boundary changes.
Lancashire-born Mr. Holden appears to have done a so-called chicken run, a common political practice where an MP who faces losing their seat seeks out a safe seat.
John Baron, 64, was the Conservative MP since 2001 and had a majority of more than 20,000 at the last election.
He announced in October he would be standing down and is in line for a peerage.
The seat was formerly held by Harvey Proctor and Teresa Gorman, and remained Conservative even after Sir Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide election victory.
Earlier this week the Conservative central office put Mr. Holden—an accomplished media performer who regularly represents the Tories in broadcast interviews—on a shortlist of one for the seat.
The Conservative group leader on Basildon Council, Andrew Baggott, said: “They have given no choice of candidate to the association, no choice of candidate to the membership ... They are lacking in integrity, honour, and these are the things that the public looks for in the people they want to run this country.”
‘It Is Not Cricket’
The association’s chairman, Richard Moore, said: “We have been absolutely frustrated with the selection process, we have had the vacancy for seven months and party headquarters waited until two days before nominations close to give us one candidate. I mean, it is really not right. It is not cricket as one would say.”The association’s executive council met on Wednesday night.
It is not clear if Mr. Baggott himself had put his name forward to be a parliamentary candidate.
Mr. Baggott said: “Of course we are running out of time, because the nominations have to be in by 4 p.m. on Friday. We have to organise people. It is deliberately being left to the last minute to prevent any action being able to be taken.”
Asked if he would campaign for Mr. Holden, he said: “Absolutely not. Sorry, I will be campaigning for Stephen Metcalfe [Tory candidate for South Basildon and East Thurrock] in the neighbouring authority. I will be campaigning for Mark Francois [candidate in neighbouring Rayleigh and Wickford]. I will not be campaigning for somebody that is being imposed upon us.”
Mr. Moore said Mr. Holden’s candidacy came as “a complete surprise.”
He said, “What we find ourselves with is unfortunately this wholly undemocratic process need never have been necessary as the previous MP John Baron had announced that he would stand down at the next general election in October last year.”
“So, association members are very disappointed that the party, after seven months, has imposed one candidate and have not given the opportunity for several candidates to be considered by the members of the association,” added Mr. Moore.
A Conservative Party spokesman said, “We do not comment on selections.”
Another MP who performed a chicken run was Kieran Mullan, who won Crewe and Nantwich for the Conservatives in December 2019.
Rather than defend his majority of 8,509, Mr. Mullan switched to the vacant, safe seat of Bexhill and Battle in East Sussex—where the Tory majority was 26,059 in 2019—and was selected by members on June 3, ahead of Lord Cameron’s sister-in-law, Emily Sheffield, a journalist and former editor of the Evening Standard newspaper.
