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Hey Paul,
As a producer, I found your question interesting and felt compelled to answer it, because I had struggled with this before in a previous life.
To me, there is not really any politics to it, it’s about who can make your mix sound the best or enhance it without destroying your hard work. I used to have a hard time with this until I performed a little “social experiment”. I performed a search of mastering engineers who offered a free sample of a mastered mix. I then sent 2 of my mixes out to about 15 mastering engineers/houses and then sat with my team to pick out which mastering engineer did the best job and ranked. The top 3 were awesome, while the bottom 3 were awful. It also helps when a mastering engineer identifies with your specific genre of music.
After I discovered my mastering engineer of choice during this experiment, I set out to forge a relationship with him and really get to know him. It turns out he loved my genres and was a keyboard player/musician like myself. The rest is history. Hope this helps!
His name is Mark Hammond of Planet Sound Mastering in the UK! If you decide to use him, let him know Big Chrizzle sent you! 😎