Analysis

Labour admits super-rich are propping it up as member numbers collapse again

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32 Comments on Labour admits super-rich are propping it up as member numbers collapse again

Record fall in membership despite earlier claims of increases from right-wing figures

Labour has admitted it is only kept afloat by the money of the mega-rich, after yet another massive fall in party membership numbers – to a level lower than its peak under Ed Miliband and far below the almost 600,000 when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.

According to its latest official figures, the party suffered a net loss of 37,000 members, 9% of its total, by the end of 2023 compared to a year earlier – the biggest year-on-year loss since 2003 when Labour haemorrhaged members during Tony Blair’s illegal war in Iraq. Even the claimed latest membership of 370,000 is suspect according to party insiders, as Labour under Keir Starmer has long padded its figures by continuing to count lapsed members – and its records were long in chaos after outsourcing led to a massive hack and the freezing of its membership administration systems.

Leading right-wing Labour figures have repeatedly briefed that members were pouring in and numbers were rising, attributing this to Starmer. In fact, given Starmer’s deep personal unpopularity, it makes far more sense to attribute the collapse in membership to him, his support for Israel’s genocide, his cowardly assault on left-wing MPs and members and his dog-whistle red-Tory ‘policies’.

And the party has inadvertently admitted that it is only propped up by donations from the super-rich. Party general secretary David Evans has said that the party losing less than the expected £2.5m during the general election campaign was because of “an increase in high-value donations”. Under Corbyn, large numbers of ordinary people chipped in what they could afford – so many that Labour’s debts, grown huge under previous leaders, were wiped out.

Now, even kept afloat by billionaires – and clearly beholden to them, given Labour’s atrocious announcements penalising the poor since Starmer was ushered into Downing Street by the fascist Reform ‘party’ – Labour is still losing money, just less than it would have without the huge donors wanting payback for their investment.

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32 comments

  1. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

    Haven’t you all been told enough times that they all left under Corbyn, and those 12m-odd voters Corbyn got in 2019 made sure the toerags git an eighty seat majority ?!!!

    Anyway, smarmerism represents wealth and corporate interests, so let them prop the slimeball up.

    Reply

      1. [In July24 Labour’s] “Membership stood at 358,080 [roughly the same as in Nov19] including those in arrears, up from 354,891 in March. Recent post-election surges have been driven largely by the desire to participate in leadership elections – 120,000 in January 2020
        Between July17 (538,606) and Nov19 (430,359) 20% of the Labour’s membership deserted the Party

      4. “Annual conference was set to break all records for attendance and income,”

        – Anne Black’s Report: From Labour List link.

        That’s it is it, Billy? That’s your evidence?

        As Conference has not only delegates and posse’s of Regional and National Management cadres attending but also hordes of sponsors, Donor Class interests, outside companies, and other stalls and hangers on you are ignoring the question of the ratio between delegate members and all the others attendees – not to mention the income ration.

        Be sure to come back to us when you’ve done some proper research rather than this dog’s dinner of a bodge job you bullshitting with.

  2. Well, I know for a fact they are counting former members, because they keep sending me e-mails and I left in 2020. I keep telling them I AM NOT A MEMBER.

    Reply

    1. Lesley – As clearly stated in the figures I have presented above “ including those in arrears”. It has been Labour’s practise for many years to include lapsed members for 6mths after they fall into arrears (including during the Corbyn years)
      You are welcome to follow the link to Labour’s, very recent (25/07/24), NEC Report and check it out for yourself
      https://labourlist.org/2024/07/labour-nec-report-ann-black-general-election-results-strategy-party-conference/

      Reply

      1. . It has been Labour’s practise for many years to include lapsed members for 6mths after they fall into arrears (including during the Corbyn years)

        Except as clearly stated, Lesley hasn’t been a member for FOUR YEARS.

        Just WHAT is your major malfunction, numbnuts?

  3. SteveH do you agree with Jonathan Cook that it was Kaplan’s Unit8200 surveillance and spying skills that made him attractive to Sir Keir Stalin-Davos and (agree with me) that he is certain to utilise those military and intelligence capabilities, both as party leader and – regrettably now – as PM where he will certainly embed those Surveillance abilities deeper into Britain’s security infrastructure? Vile is as Vile does.

    358,000 members is a CLAIM, not substantiated, verified or validated data, ie ‘evidence’. Most of the ‘dearly departed’ (myself included) simply cancelled their membership payments and never completed any ‘termination of membership’ paperwork – so disgusted were they with Starmer and his dubious integrity. The much-shrunk party admits as much in the report you made me read when it said “membership stood at 358,080 including those in arrears….”.

    We left. We are not in arrears. Nothing Starmer or his pretend-Labour government says is ever to be trusted. In fact, the opposite.

    Reply

    1. qwertboi – “Do you have any evidence to the contrary?”

      So we’ll take that as a NO then. You appear to be claiming that the NEC are all telling lies which doesn’t do much for your credibility, are you really that silly and desperate?

      On Sept 18th at 5pm when the results of the NEC elections are announced we will have the definitive number of fully paid up Labour Party members. Come back then and tell me all about it.

      Reply

      1. Billy – The NEC don’t necessarily have to taking the same approach you do to be wrong in regard to the membership figures.

        The evidence is that the membership database has long being compromised – not least by the hacking arising from the irresponsibility and laxity of the incompetents now running the country on around only 20% of the popular vote.

        Garbage In, Garbage Out, from a not fit for purpose and lacking in efficacy system run by incompetents is hardly convincing ‘evidence’.

        And the tells are two-fold:

        (i) If the membership levels are as robust as being claimed, the reliance on income from the Donor Class – as in the USA – in which that tiny in number Donor Class of oligarchs who pay the piper also call the tune – would not be evident. This was not the case under the previous Party administration.

        (ii) The absence of active members – ie troops on the ground to canvass in local and national elections – evident from both the number of CLP and Ward Party Units struggling to function properly and Anne Black’s Labour List Report…..

        “We are all volunteers, and punishing members will not move them en masse 50 miles down the road. Instead, some did nothing, and will do less when we need them in future. Local parties particularly resented losing access to Contact Creator without warning, even when they were fully meeting their twinning obligations.

        One CLP officer, prevented from organising any polling day activity, reported 25 members who were over 80 and would sit outside polling stations, but not make three-hour round trips no matter how much they were shouted at. They had no role.

        Another activist writes: “In future there needs to be a better understanding that some members cannot campaign away from home. For example, I have a seriously ill wife so when I was able to work I needed to be doing it locally, and not in my twinned seat. Cutting off our IT was a disgraceful idea and whoever thought of that needs a good talking to…”*

        ….which details the results of what active membership remains having largely downed tools or departed in droves and which requires what remaining foot soldiers exist having to double, triple and quadruple the number of Constituencies they have to canvass in. This in indicative of a collapsed membership base.

        It is not as if we have not already experienced an example of this denial of reality from other political party’s in the same fix. It was only a few years ago the SNP bureaucracy and management cadre were going through the same process. As explained here by Stuart Campbell on the Wings Over Scotland site:

        https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-number-you-first-thought-of/

        There is sufficient evidence to indicate that what passes for the ‘Labour’ Party will, like their counterparts in the SNP, eventually – and doubtless reluctantly – join the Reality Based Community by conceding the reality of a reduced and very likely collapsed, membership base.

        Your so-called “evidence”, Billy, is, as usual, little more than groundless and worthless fantasy.

        *Anne Black goes on to mildly criticise the Sanctions imposed on local volunteer members and Party Units for not doing as they were told by people who clearly think they are entitled to order people about at will and deny those same people any kind of agency other than that of a mindless drone.

        This will further reduce the active and effective membership base of the Party which, if it survives a single Parliamentary term, will most certainly be wiped out as even an effective opposition if we ever have another GE given the way it has performed in the past seven weeks.

  4. Tell us, O! Genial one…

    Does LOSING another @100k members make keef ‘really well liked’, or managing 3 MILLION LESS votes than 2017, make keef more popular than Corbyn.

    Y’know? The Corbyn YOU insist, LOST 90k members who deserted labour prior to the 2019 election?

    And if they deserted the party back then, what is your description of the action of those who have ensured the membership numbers are significantly smaller under keef, hmmm? 🤔

    DO explain off your own bat, rather than fall back on your flogged-to-death, bullshit, default setting.

    That’s IF you have the cojones to do so. 😙🎶

    .

    Reply

      1. Wrong.

        9.7m is LESS than 12.7m. No debate.

        358k is LESS than both 530k OR 430k.

        Again, there’s no debate about it.

        But you’ve always has a problem with numbers. And words. And grammar.

        And reality.

      2. With only 20.2% of all available GE24 votes going to Starmer and his party at GE24, 79.8% chose not to ‘trust’ him – despite massive support from the MSM.

        With disinformation and relentless smears from said press, Corbyn managed to get more votes in GE17 and GE19 than Starmer at GE24.

      3. What happened to keef’s 430k dedicated (in italics for extra sneer value) followers?

        Seems like he’s LOST 20%.

        That’s WITHOUT increasing the membership – EVER (in italics AND bold because you’re a cunt)

        Now, I’m away back to me pit. I expect to see some sort of snide infantile comment about this post (that you, no doubt, find excruciatingly inconvenient) when I resume my browsing, sometime later this morning.

        I’d much rather wake to find you’ve expired in the meantime, though.

      4. And you were’t asked about any perceived ‘losses’ under Corbyn (despite the party having 1/4 million MORE members when he left the leadership rather than when he took up the position).

        You were asked about keef.

        But you can’t answer for the woeful hemorrhaging of memberships since he took over.

        How many have joined since keef took over?

        Oh, of course, there’s the serial liars and zionist genocide supporters ellman and berger. There’s a massive TWO.

        For a loss of 80k (at a bare minimum, even if we accept their numbers).

        Marvellous going, keef 👍😉

  5. Answer came there none….

    Corbyn increases membership from 180k to >530k (at its peak).

    But somehow, he’s responsible for losing members, having made a net gain of 350k members, or almost trebling the total.

    Keef oversees a decline in membership year on year. Spunks the cash reserves on frivolous legal fees and payouts to those who help inpose him as fuhrer.

    Can’t even muster 10million votes against THE three worst toerag leaders of all time, in succession. No other (so-called) *opposition* leader was ever as fortunate, but was less effective, seeing as he had never once defeated a toerag vote.

    In fact, has voted WITH the rags, or abstained, more times than actually opposed. Even sacking his own MPs from positions for voting against, instead of abstaining on a one-line whip.

    …And is now continuing with toerag policies now he’s slimed his way under the door of #10

    But Corbyn….

    We’ve heard it before, ad nauseam, ad infinitum

    Just fuck off and infest one of the pro-smarmerite websites with your sycophantic, nonce excusing bollocks.

    You’ve lowered the standard with your unwelcome return. The comments section was operating just dandy, during your absence.

    Reply

    1. An unwelcome return indeed. So bloody boring and tedious apart from anything else.

      Reply

      1. Not forgetting predictable, repetitive, sloppy and infantile.

  6. Historical comparisons can offer insights. For me, the National government of 1931 is a good place to start: nation before party (MacDonald/Starmer); sound money and fiscal discipline (Snowden/Reeves).

    I’ve been recommended these sources:

    Andrew Thorpe’s British General Election of 1931 and his earlier Britain in the 30s’: A Deceptive Decade.

    David Howell’s MacDonald’s Party.

    Philip Williamson’s National Crisis and National Government.

    Reply

  8. Starmer was not voted in by Reform. Starmer was voted in by apathy. Let’s be honest here. Keef got 19%. About 50% didn’t bother. Find myself wondering how long it will be before shy labour voters are in force. Those fools who said anyone but the Tories. Clearly didn’t learn from anyone but Corbyn.

    As for the labour party, they’re the party of the rich. Davos over Westminster.

    I can see change coming. Like Trump and RFK Jr are going to announce today. Left and right are dead.

    Reply

    1. Or, show your support for the people of the Ukraine by poisoning them with depleted uranium weapons (official government policy).

      Reply

  11. Another pearl of wisdom from the resodent gobshite

    “Despite his dedicated band of followers Corbyn’s problem was the same in both the 2017 & 19 elections, significantly more people couldn’t stand him.”

    And yet keef got THREE MILLION LESS votes than Corbyn in ’17.

    (Do you know that there are SEVEN EU countries with populations smaller than that 3 MILLION?).

    And a half million votes LESS than 2019.

    (That’s about the equivalent of the maltese population)

    So, if they couldn’t stand Corbyn what did the electorate make of keef, genius?

    DO tell…

    Reply

  12. The Loveless Landslide gave us two clear messages
    Complete apathy from the electorate who will now turn their guns on Red Tories
    As close to zero support from what Labour members are left, no boots on the ground
    The odds on the Fuhrer getting less votes than JC in 2017 and 2019 was like taking candy from a baby
    Thanks

    Reply

    1. As Richard Murphy observes……

      https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/08/23/what-might-save-democracy-from-our-politicians/

      “There is no one I have known who has not been appropriately cynical about the electoral campaigning techniques introduced into the UK by New Labour, in particular. People have always been bemused by the idea that politicians might form their opinions based on whatever a small group of people might tell them. But, of course, as we now realise, that was never the purpose of these things.

      Focus groups always existed to work out ways in which a politician might best tell the electorate to think so that they might agree with the outcome that the politician sought. The mistake so many made was to presume that the politicians were seeking to learn from the electorate. That was never the case. Instead, politicians were trying to find the best way to persuade us to fall into line with them.

      As a consequence, the focus group can now be properly and appropriately identified for its particularly pernicious role in the development of the Single Transferable Party from which we now all suffer, with whichever part of the party that is in power being the one that has the best currently developed methods of persuading us to deliver power to a group of politicians whose interests, aspirations and goals might have absolutely nothing in common with those things that we might desire.

      The consequence of this is now apparent. After 30 years or more of politicians presenting us with the pretence that they seek to determine our views by consulting with representative samples of the population, what is now clear is that they do nothing of the sort. Instead, they just work out their marketing messages through the use of focus groups. The impact has been toxic.

      The politicians have forgotten what they ever knew about representing people. Instead, completely contemptuously, they now think it is for them to work out what needs to be decided, irrespective of whatever opinion we might have, and for us to be persuaded that they are right. The result is an arrogance on their part that is plain for all to see in the likes of Rachel Reeves and Wes Streeting, in particular.”

      ——————————————————————–

      These people are not interested in ‘winning’ an election to do anything with that power other than feather their own nests at the expense of the rest of us – including the clueless, ignorant and arrogant useless idiot numpties who cheerlead and gaslight for them, like the Billy no mates of this world.

      Reply

    2. Or, as Rachel Reeves might say, “like taking the Winter Fuel Allowance from a pensioner”

      Reply

  13. Meanwhile, yet another racket for the Westminster clique (and their plod protectors) to indulge in with impunity.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gd7qxwvjzo

    The Metropolitan Police has ended its investigation into the general election betting scandal.

    The offences being investigated did not meet the “high bar” to prove misconduct in public office, the force said on Friday.”

    As if bleeding the taxpayer white wasn’t enough 😕

    Reply

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