GRASSROOTS Blaenau Gwent Labour Party members will leave because of the imposition of an all-women shortlist to succeed outgoing MP Llew Smith, an official is warning.

Des Davies, the secretary of the Blaenau Gwent constituency party, said: "I think it will undoubtedly cause people to leave the party - in what numbers I don't know." The Wales Labour Party says an all-women shortlist for Blaenau Gwent and Swansea East, where the sitting MPs are standing down at the next general election, is necessary to redress the gender imbalance in Westminster where only ten per cent of the Welsh MPs are women.

The move is being vehemently opposed by the constituency party including Mr Davies, Mr Smith and former Labour leader Michael Foot, who was the MP until 1992.

They are appealing against the decision - branding it unfair and claiming it is all about the imposition of a New Labour candidate - and have started a petition. Mr Davies said: "We've stuck with the party through the bad time of the Thatcher years and the 1970s and now they have decided that they know best.

"There is no doubt that the seat in Blaenau Gwent could, in my opinion, be lost."

The move has also angered area Assembly Member Peter Law who said the positive discrimination has prevented him standing as a candidate. Mr Law said: "I have been positively discriminated against and what is more the local Labour Party members of Blaenau Gwent have been denied the right of choice on merit and have been dictated to."

A Wales Labour Party spokeswoman said: "Nobody likes mechanisms but most people think it is now wonderful that the National Assembly has got a 50/50 split of male and female candidates."