You're quite right. The purely open lists would maybe not eliminate but reduce the opportunities for promoting non-mainstream candidates. That's why the law commission settled on a flexible list, which again is sort of the best of both worlds, part two, where you could have parties promoting a slate that would consist largely of non-mainstream candidates, and then the individual candidates for those voters who really are concerned about their capacity to reject elite control by the parties.
On July 25th, 2016. See this statement in context.