For active Bradford Labour Party members, the sobering thought is that Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, is the last Labour MP left in the metropolitan district.

Until the by-election result in Bradford West on March 29, they were confidently expecting there to be at least two. Before the 2010 General Election, four of the five district-wide parliamentary seats were occupied by Labour MPs.

Moreover, Labour’s Ian Greenwood was leader of Bradford Council. His deputy, Councillor Imran Hussain was Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for Bradford West, much fancied to take over from ailing Marsha Singh, who had represented the constituency since 1997.

As we know, George Galloway stormed out of the blue and turned an 8,000 Labour majority into a 10,000-plus majority for the Respect Party.

“It was a kick up the backside. It showed us the need to change,” said Gerry Sutcliffe.

As Mr Galloway and his supporters celebrated the following day, Labour leader Ed Miliband met up with Mr Sutcliffe and Councillor Greenwood in Leeds and asked what on earth had happened.

Ian Greenwood said: “We gave him an honest appraisal. There were all sorts of factions at work in the Muslim community, and in the white community.

“There had been influences at work in Bradford West over the years. In 1995 we lost a seat at Toller, the only Labour seat that was lost in the country that year. Volatility in the constituency goes back a long way.”

Ed Miliband eventually came to Bradford, to hold a very public private meeting with selected people. Some of the things he heard – the feeling of disenfranchisement among women and young professionals, factionalism within the party – reflected what he had been told in Leeds.

Labour’s National Executive Committee instructed a panel to conduct an inquiry into Bradford West. Many people, inside and outside the Labour Party, gave statements.

Paul Nicholson, director of the regional party at Wakefield said: “Many things have come out of that inquiry. One of them is a new selection process that will be instigated towards the back end of next year, before the district council elections in 2014.

“It’s going to be discussed in consultation with Labour Party members and worked out over the next year.

“There will also be a year-long Future Candidates Programme open to all members that will offer training on how to get yourself ready to be a candidate, how to campaign and represent your local community.”

In addition, the shape of the district Labour Party will change. This, however, emanates from a new party rule book called Refounding Labour, issued at the 2011 Liverpool party conference by Ed Miliband, and applies to district parties throughout the country.

“It will have a different constitution. At the moment it’s a delegated body. There may still be some delegation, but the party will be structured differently,” Mr Nicholson said.

Ward members will continue to have a say in the selection of prospective council candidates. How that happens is to be discussed and worked out in the next year or so.

But these changes may not be applied to the selection of prospective parliamentary candidates for the 2015 General Election because proposed alterations to parliamentary boundaries, which would see most of Shipley merging with Bradford West to form a new constituency, have been put on hold.

Up until the spat between Nick Clegg and David Cameron that brought about this state of abeyance, Labour had been preparing new constituency parties with new selection procedures.

“The likelihood is the boundary changes won’t happen,” said Gerry Sutcliffe. But irrespective of what happens in the House of Commons, Bradford District Labour Party won’t be selecting council candidates the same way ever again.

Will this departure from cabals meeting in smoke-filled back rooms – one of the complaints made to Ed Miliband – make a difference?

Ian Greenwood is inclined to think changing the selection process won’t.

He said: “It will get increasingly professionalised and homogenised. We’re going to get people we think will win rather than people we want to win.

“Until you get Asians representing white areas and whites representing Asian areas, we have got a problem.”

Gerry Sutcliffe thinks clearer selection procedures across a broader spectrum of people will be welcomed.

“Hopefully, that’s something our supporters in Bradford West will be pleased to see,” he said.