Why Are They Leaving.

[webbo3]

What's the possible reason behind this.?

Labour Party 'has lost 26,000 members since summer'
http://news.sky.com/story/labour-party-has-lost-26000-members-since-summer-10788065

Dave

[Jackdaw33]

Do you really need to ask?

[Baldric]

Gosh, it's a mystery isn't it?

[webbo3]

Two best answers so quickly, I know maybe Mikey can help. :-)

Dave.

[jno]

they'll be the Tories like TTT who only joined so they could vote for Corbyn.

[ichkeria]

Yes plainly one reason is that a lot of people only joined so that they could vote: either for Corbyn or whoever. I'd say a goodly number of those are not exactly committed to the cause

[Kromovaracun]

I'm one of the leaving members (or will be, I shan't be renewing). I originally joined after Corbyn became leader, as I felt cautiously optimistic about what he could do to the party.

Mea culpa. I was wrong.

I plan on ditching the party because I don't feel it's an effective opposition, or an effective governing party. If it was even one of those things, I might feel comfortable staying, but it is just failing at every conceivable level that a political party can fail at. I am not wholly convinced that it's going to recover, so I just feel sort of jaded and uninspired to keep supporting it with my time or money.

[Zacs-Master]

I think Jno makes a good point.

[ichkeria]

There's a good article by Danny Finkelstein in the Times - partly tongue in cheek no doubt - bemoaning the fact that Corbyn seems actually to have given up on coming across as a "break the mould" politician. Pitching Labour as an "anti-establishment" party could surely not be any worse poll-wise. But I suspect that Corbyn never really had it in him to do anything like that. He's no visionary, and ultimately all he was ever good for was voting against his own party. Now he himself is in the position of the people he always used to oppose he seems completely at sea.

[youngmafbog]

//It shows total Labour membership at 528,180, down from a peak of 554,000 in July, but still far above the 200,000 members it reportedly had in May 2015.//

So is it a real problem? People come and go.

[lindapalmara]

//I'd say a goodly number of those are not exactly committed to the cause//

What cause? other than having a vision of a nationalised Britain where everyone is living in state owned houses, catches state owned transport to state owned factories etc and all their children following in their footsteps, unless of course the country goes bankrupt.

[Gromit]

To put the 500,000in perspective:

In 2008 the Conservatives had 253,600 members

By 2013 it had almost halved to 134,000. The figure today is kept secret because it is embarrassingly low, believed to be less than 90,000.

Why is Tory membership in decline? Simple, they are dying, the majority of its members are 60+

[Zacs-Master]

If that's true ^^^^ why aren't the Cons (and Labour for that matter) recruiting new members?

[hereIam]

I have stopped voting Labour because I cannot stand Corbyn and what he stands for, simple ...

[Gromit]

Between the General Election, and October 2015, Labour said 183,658 people had joined the party meaning membership has roughly doubled in 6 months

Total membership then was 370,658. Since Corbyn's election, they added another 170,000 members.

So a slight decline of 26,000 is insignificant.

[ToraToraTora]

Perhaps jno, but I have maintained my membership so I can fight for Jezza later, he's the best asset we've got in the Tory party. The PLP is full of Blairite popinjays.

[ludwig]

Gromit, what you and the Labour party fail to comprehend is that party membership is largely irrelevant in the big picture.

It doesn't matter that there are 500,000 Labour party members who worship 'Jeremy'. The problem is that they are the only 500,000 people in the whole country who don't think he's a pillock.

The other 30? odd million that make up the people who vote in general elections don't want to see him as PM.

[EDDIE51]

As said only a tiny % of those who support a particular party in elections actually bother to join it as a member. labour seems to have a higher % of supporters who are actual party members than any other party.

[Gromit]

ludwig

Of course I know the number of members doesn't matter.

[atalanta]

The Labour Party is the answer to yesterday's problems.