Among the many announcements at Labour’s landmark NEC (National Executive Committee) meeting yesterday was the decision that the candidate in 46 of Labour’s key ‘marginal’ target seats at the next General Election will be selected from an all-women shortlist (AWS). This measure is expected to achieve the party’s goal of at least fifty percent of its MPs being female.

There has, naturally, been a lot of interest in which 46 will be AWS – and the SKWAWKBOX can now reveal which seats they will be. The seats are listed in order of ‘marginality’:

Pudsey

Chipping Barnet

Norwich N

Telford

Bolton West

Northampton N

Middlesbrough S/Cleveland E

Milton Keynes S

Milton Keynes N

Morecambe and Lunesdale

Putney

Harrow east

Morley & Outwood

Corby

Swindon S

Worcester

Chingford & Woodford Green

Reading W

Derbyshire NE

Carlisle

Southport

Rossendale & Darwen

Truro & Falmouth

Walsall N

Stevenage

Filton & Bradley Stoke

Shipley

Erewash

Worthing E & Shoreham

Nuneaton

Colchester

Wimbledon

Plymouth Moor View

Shrewsbury & Atcham

Rochford & Southend E

Dover

S Ribble

Rushcliffe

Welwyn Hatfield

York Outer

Stafford

Kings wood

Harlow

Rugby

Redditch

Bournemouth E

Unlike recent selections in which shortlists were decided by an NEC-appointed, usually 3-person panel, local members will control the process in the 76 most marginal seats – a welcome improvement to party democracy.

As the process is expected to begin not long after Labour’s conference, which starts on Sunday, it’s therefore vital that good, local, female candidates come forward without delay for each of the above seats – candidates who are thoroughly behind the party’s direction and on the side of the membership – and similarly-inclined candidates of either gender for the remaining key target seats.

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