Labour’s membership, which had dipped slightly, most likely due to right-wingers giving up and jumping ship, has surged again. Rumours of an increase in response to the escalating smear campaign have been circulating, with a stream of social media users saying they had joined for that reason.
But now the phenomenon can be confirmed: Labour has approximately 533,000 full members, not including affiliated members of unions and other organisations.
Campaigns guru Charlie Mansell deserves special mention for yet another accurate prediction:
One NEC member say our membership at end July was 510k and another said it was 530k. My own usually accurate estimate based on tracking some CLP trends over a decade was 520k. It looks like we have risen perhaps by 10k in August due to media coverage so prob in 520k-540k mark
— Charlie Mansell (@charliemansell) September 3, 2018
SKWAWKBOX comment:
The clean sweep by the left in the NEC elections likely to be announced at any moment and the news of resurgent membership figures will be a shot in the arm for Labour’s huge pro-Corbyn majority – and for the party’s whole leadership.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Great, now when is the labour leadership going to show some spine and fight the smear campagn seriously. It’s not so hard, follow Williamson’s lead and stop backing off from labour’s core values.
The smears are designed as a distraction, so as to make us fight the battle they want to fight. Headli(n)es ditto.
Our strategy is simple use the audience they are gathering for our own strategy, the membership drive. Two Million Members by May 2022.
Because members are what we will defeat them on. The more members we have, the more people we have to fight elections when they come. The more Tory “safe” seats we can take. The more voices we have in the social media to drown out the Tories wood pulp megaphone. The more people to visit the doorsteps the more people will be talking about labour policies in the pubs and clubs, in the shopping market queues and on the walk too and from the school gates.
The more posters there will be in house windows. The more stalls in the high street, the more Labour Party membership drive gigs there will be. And as we have already seen the more money we have in our Labour War Chest. It is a virtuous circle.
Numbers is our strategic advantage.
So do not be distracted merely thank them for the audience they are providing, remember there is no such thing as bad publicity, take the higher road and post the following.
Sick of the smears?
Want to do something about it?
Time you joined the Labour Party?
https://join.labour.org.uk/
You can go one better in officially confirming your story. The House of Commons Library today released a report on party membership. Labour is 540,000. See link here https://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN05125
At a glance looks like Dems may have dropped slightly while the Tories claim 124,000 +
HoC is an estimate, though – they have the Tories at 124k – but as of now Labour’s own figure is 533k
The 2017 Labour Party accounts are authoritative, and they say 31dec2017 = 564443, and the year before was 31dec2016 = 543645. So if it is 533k now, it is actually a significant fall since the beginning of the year.
I maintain the Wikipedia graph of Labour party membership, and all the recent authoritative numbers and newspaper claims are recorded towards the bottom of this web page in the Data section.
So it can be estimated to be between 510k – 540k, depending on who to believe.
I’m not sure that that tweet from Charlie Mansell qualifies anything. Does he get paid for it?
I digress. I read somewhere that the toerags now receive more from legacies than they do from membership fees…If that’s indeed the case, the longer it goes, the more appealing the tory party’ll look with a tontine like theirs’ll be!!
People know that Jeremy is one of them and not from some privileged class or background like all the Hodges, Mann’s , Browns , Blairs,and Rabbi what’s his mooch !
He talks common sense to their problems and gives hope ! All the media can do is prevaricate and lie and the smearers make grunts, and moans and growls from their barnyards !
Jeremy speaks to the young who need hope and who ARE the hope! They’re dialoguing on Social Media and sorting out the bull from the chaff, the lies from the truth !
Capitalism contradicts itself again. It invents social media to profit but it wakes people up to its lies and informs the once ignorant and gives voice to the wise !
You can bet Western nations, the CIA, MI5, the EU et al are gearing up to influence the Internet ava social media using so kinds of technology, bots and armies of astroturfers. It’s already started in the United States.
‘Via’ not ava. Oops!
I joined about 6 weeks ago and not heard anything by mail. However on checking my bank today £50 has been taken by the LP. So if its taking6 weeks to process joining it can only be two things, lots of people joining or my social media accounts have been trawled.