LABOUR’S Warrington South parliamentary candidate for the next general election is set to be announced within a month.
A party source says the longlist of contenders will be confirmed ‘very shortly’, with the shortlist to follow.
Labour’s Faisal Rashid lost the Warrington South seat to Tory Andy Carter, the current MP, in the 2019 general election.
As reported in February, a Labour source said the national party will not be ‘imposing’ a candidate on Warrington South.
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But who are the frontrunners to become the party’s candidate?
Cllr Sarah Hall, the council’s cabinet member for children’s services, is understood to be the favourite.
Cllr Hall, who serves the Bewsey and Whitecross ward, was appointed to the cabinet by council leader Cllr Russ Bowden in a post-election reshuffle in May last year.
Meanwhile, Mr Rashid is rumoured to be interested in becoming the party’s parliamentary candidate to get the chance to battle to become Warrington South MP again.
Emma Fox, Speaker of the House of Commons Lindsay Hoyle’s daughter, is also understood to be in contention.
At the beginning of the selection process, applicants for the position of prospective parliamentary candidate submit an application to a panel made up of local, regional and national Labour personnel.
That panel draw up a long list of candidates. This long list is sent to the local party, whose shortlisting committee – made up of local party and union members – puts together a shortlist of candidates to be presented to members.
That shortlist of candidates can then start to campaign in anticipation of the actual selection, which takes place in person and allows members a free vote after a caucus with all the candidates.
In a recent Electoral Calculus prediction for the Warrington South seat, it predicted Labour would gain the seat from the Conservatives in the next general election.
At the 2019 general election, Mr Carter won with a majority of 2,010 over Labour.