And then there were four. The race to be named Northamptonshire’s first Police and Crime Commissioner has been plunged into fresh chaos after Labour withdrew its support for Lee Barron following the revelation he had been fined £20 in 1990 following a disturbance at a town centre pub while watching an England game in the World Cup.
We are left with the farcical situation in which Mr Barron is still technically standing, despite being suspended pending an investigation by his party, even though he can’t actually accept the job if he was to win. It appears his name will still appear on the ballot papers, leaving voters confused and increasingly disenfranchised with an election many did not want, understand or even see the need for.
There are three main losers in this sorry mess. Labour, Lee Barron and democracy.
It is my understanding that Labour knew all about Lee’s past several months ago, ahead of the selection meetings. Questions have to be asked about the thoroughness of checks made by senior party officials. Why weren’t they aware of changes in legislation that meant the offence, no matter how minor, prevented him from standing?
Why didn’t they carry out thorough checks on Lee’s background and suitability for the role? He is a vocal trade unionist and a quick search of YouTube brings up a four minute video of him giving a speech at a rally last year in which he advocates breaking the law.
The party is now in a position of not having a candidate in an election that it stood a very real chance of winning.
As for Lee himself, it would be wrong to hang him out to dry. He is a decent guy who accepts he may have done wrong in the past but has devoted his life to standing up for what he believes in. A magistrate for 10 years, he knows more about the justice system than many of his rivals yet his past has now come back to haunt him.
Quite whether a £20 fine handed out 22 years ago, where he tried to reason with a police officer that his mate shouldn’t be arrested, would impact on his ability to be Police and Crime Commissioner is a moot point. What it does show is that archaic election guidelines have thrown a rather large spanner in the works.
Lee has done more than most to re-establish the Labour party in Northampton. Left in a sorry state by the Clyde Loakes debacle at the last general election, the party found itself on its knees locally. Lee took up the challenge to raise its profile but has been rewarded with little more than the loss of his £5,000 deposit and some embarrassing headlines for his scrapbook.
To the credit of his four remaining rivals, they have not waded in with the usual political pointscoring so often seen in Westminster. There is a genuine sympathy among them for their colleague’s situation.
Yet the fact remains this could all have been avoided.
Every single person that works for Northamptonshire Police is subjected to thorough background checks on both themselves and their family to check for links to criminality. They have a CRB check. They are vetted.
Why then, in the hunt for the person to run the organisation, are those same checks not applied to all the candidates? It was not a requirement to undergo any of those checks. If it had have been, this would have come out months ago, Lee Barron would not have been able to stand and the election could have proceeded as normal.
Instead, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of chaos and uncertainty. There is a very real danger that Northamptonshire could become the laughing stock of the country in these polls.
We have endured enough sleaze and scandal in modern politics to last a lifetime. There is now a demand for openness, honesty and transparency. It’s the least we deserve.
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