Local Tories in Bromsgrove are rumbling as the re-run of Sajid Javid’s Bromsgrove seat selection is penned in for mid-December. Local councillor Bradley Thomas was selected back in July, beating Onward’s Seb Payne by five votes. After association president Mark Jones made complaints, CCHQ launched an investigation into claims that some who voted weren’t actually eligible to. They finished their report, though it remains unreleased. Now a “confirmation vote” is taking place. Some wonder why the report hasn’t been made public…

Members were invited late yesterday afternoon to the new vote on 14th December. Local Tories are concerned CCHQ is trying to push Seb Payne in by dubious means. Officials involved in the first selection meeting, which formally confirmed Thomas as the candidate, allegedly weren’t even interviewed by CCHQ’s investigators. Guido readers may remember that back in July a ‘refer back motion’ to restart the selection was proposed – though eventually defeated. Safe seats are running out and candidates are meant to all be in place by January…

A member of the association tells Guido:

“It’s unbelievable that CCHQ has a report which it won’t share with anyone locally – including the chairman – after failing to interview any key witnesses, and after firing the first investigator for producing the wrong conclusion.

I don’t know what hold Mark Jones has over CCHQ, but he is the only person who made a series of complaints, and they all seem to have been upheld with no process at all.

I saw him storm out of the meeting, and he had to be blocked by the moderator from asking an unfair question which he targeted only to Bradley. He spent the weeks prior to the meeting campaigning amongst members for Seb Payne and telling everyone that it was what Sajid wanted and that they had to vote for Seb because he could attract good speakers for our fundraising dinners.

This will open the floodgates to SGM processes all over the country now. I’m not sure that’s what was intended here. I think the process works just fine, with local members choosing who they want – not having people parachuted in from London, or using dirty tricks like these to reverse the Party’s democratic processes“.

Murk and mire…