Candidates

Abstract

No special qualifications whatever are legally required of Parliamentary candidates; the only positive requirements are virtually those which also apply to voters — that is, to be a British or Commonwealth subject or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland, and to have reached the age of 21. (This has remained the minimum age for candidates, even though the voting age was reduced to 18 in 1969. An Electoral Commission report in 2004² recommended that the age for candidature be reduced to 18, but the government had made no indication of its intentions at the time of writing.) Much the same rules apply for candidacy in European, local and devolved assembly elections. It is not even necessary to be on the election register. There are, however, a number of disqualifications which together exclude a considerable number of people from being elected. People in the following categories are disqualified:

Aliens cannot sit in Parliament, although those who have acquired British citizenship through naturalisation are eligible, as are citizens of Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland. Nationals of other EU countries are eligible to stand for local authorities and for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Irish Assemblies, and also for the European Parliament provided they are not simultaneously a candidate in some other member state of the EU.

A comprehensive survey of the candidates in each recent election, and of how they came to be selected, can be found in Byron Criddle’s chapter of the Butler and Kavanagh Nuffield studies. The recent overhaul in selection procedures awaits an updated and comprehensive treatment. Three earlier books which cover the process as it used to be are Pathways to Parliament by Austin Ranney (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, and London: Macmillan, 1965); The Selectorate by Peter Paterson (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967) and The Selection of Parliamentary Candidates by Michael Rush (London: Nelson, 1969). On Members of Parliament see The Commons in Perspective by Philip Norton (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981) and The Backbenchers by P. G. Richards (London: Faber, 1972).