AS A moderate Labour supporter, I despair at the party’s ability to alienate potential supporters.

After a convoluted electoral process resulted in the debacle of vote-loser Ed Miliband becoming leader, Labour HQ now imposes on the York Labour Party an all-women shortlist to replace retiring MP Hugh Bayley, a policy many people, including women Labour voters, find discriminatory.

While there are more men than women MPs, “positive discrimination”, an oxymoron if ever there was one, is not the way to redress the balance. Barring people from participating in the democratic process on the grounds of race, ethnicity or religion is unlawful. The same should apply to gender.

When a woman gains a senior position, she should be secure in the knowledge that she has done so on merit, otherwise she is undermined by the insinuation that the appointment was an example of tokenism.

The duty of a selection panel is to appoint the best person available, someone who can win the seat and then be a first-rate advocate for the interests of the constituency in Parliament. Impelling panels to engage in social engineering will inevitably mean that on occasion a constituency is getting a weaker and less effective candidate.

We need the best people at Westminster, male or female, not those selected to fill a quota.

Stephen Dalby, Mill Farm, Yapham.