ABSTRACT
In recent years both the Conservative and Labour parties have experimented with primaries for the selection of their party leaders. This has been justified on grounds of democratization and opening up processes which had henceforth been the preserve of party members, party activists – or even parliamentarians – to a larger constituency including the wider public. But the new mechanisms have had some unexpected effects, reflecting from the tension between contradictory motivations of party reforms. This chapter therefore investigates the impact of selection rules changes on the ideological profile of successful leadership candidates and their congruence with their parties. After outlining the merits and limits of a comparison of the two main UK parties, this chapter examines the context in which the primary mechanisms were introduced in each party, analyses the way they functioned and finally assesses the effect of primaries on leadership-party congruence. This helps understand why the experimental selection methods, designed to reinforce party cohesion by attempting to establish a more direct link between party leaderships and the wider electorate, have in fact favoured the success of candidates whose ideological positioning marks a departure from that of the mainstream of the parliamentary party, and/or of the party’s grassroots.
