After the 1992 general election, the Boundary Commission recommended that the four Barnet seats be reduced to three. Sir Sydney Chapman was retained as the candidate for the Chipping Barnet seat, the only one not being abolished, and John Gorst, the sitting MP for Hendon North, was selected to contest the new Hendon constituency. Marshall was therefore pitched together with Hartley Booth, the MP for Finchley, in trying to win the nomination for the new seat of Finchley and Golders Green. Both MPs put a great deal of effort into the fight, hiring minibuses to ensure all their supporters got to the selection meeting; the contest became bitter when Booth accused Marshall of "signing up the dead and the dying" as Conservative members in order to boost his chances of victory.