Thanks to Ian for his comments on my last post - they relate to how we can increase membership, so I’ll tackle them in a new post.
In his first comment, he points out that many paper members do not even pay their own fees, but branches or public reps pay their fees in order to retain higher membership lists. This is true – all members of Labour will have heard of it happening at some point. I don’t think it’s rampant in all areas, but I do think it’s an issue that needs to be addressed, so I’ll expand on what I think are ways in which we need to deal with paper members.
Firstly, there are supporters of Labour who pay a membership fee every year, but don’t have the time/inclination to be more involved than financially supporting us. It is the responsibility of branches and public reps to try to entice these people to increased their activity levels. However, if someone is adamant that they just want to contribute financially, they should be permitted to do so.
Secondly, there are people artificially kept on the books to increase delegation size etc. This practice needs to end, but it can only end if we change the culture within the party at all levels. I would favour a root and branch examination of the membership lists across the country. Every year, members are provided with the opportunity to update the details head office have on record for them, and they’re provided with postage-paid envelopes to return their updated or confirmed details in. Every year, less than 10% of members respond, and this cycle continues ad infinitum. We need to fundamentally re-examine this approach and the attitudes which underpin it. And we need branches to consider the real advantage to the party of having hundreds of names on a database who aren’t really active members. The cost of emailing these members and sending them several letters a month, not to mention the actual cost to a branch of paying fees for such people, needs to be taken into account. Is it really in the best interests of a branch to spend a couple of hundred quid a year on membership fees for non-existent members, when these proceeds could go towards funding branch activity?
The second point Ian rightly raises, is the issue of inactive branches being a barrier to participation for new members. Mike Allen was asked a very similar question at the members meeting in the Westbury, and responded by saying that it’s impossible for Head Office to close down such branches, as they will frequently lie and pretend to have been recently active. This is a point on which I fundamentally disagree with Mike. Regional Development Officers should be making a point of attending meetings of every branch in the country. Where they are unable to secure an invite to a branch meeting in a 6 month period, or the meeting consists of less than 5 people, neighbouring branches should be merged – no argument. However, in order to carry out such an examination, we need more such staff, and not the abolition of these posts in favour of a smaller number of Deputy National Organisers. If we do not invest in staff to help build our local organisations, the status quo is set to continue. We need to examine all of our branches around the country; not to upset or undermine the people involved, but to ensure that the branches to which we are assigning new members provide structures which will be conducive to encouraging participation and activity from those members.
Finally, Ian raises the idea of sitting representatives etc being opposed to large-scale recruitment for fear of having their power usurped. I make no apology for saying that such attitudes run directly contrary to the values and aims of the Labour Party, and such attitudes should simply not be accepted. The only way in which we can possibly hope to increase our levels of activity and representation all around the country, is through having a larger party membership to assist with the process. More members means more canvassers and campaigning members. More members means more money in contributions to the party, which means there are more funds for representatives to run campaigns with. And more members means more expertise in more areas, which means we’ll further improve our ideas and policies. Public representatives need our support and the support of Head Office, but that doesn’t mean they should have the power to block the party from growing.
Apologies if this post is a little rambling, but I’m a little busy in work at the moment, and got distracted a couple of times while writing this. I hope it answers some of the questions Ian has rightly raised, but I point out – I don’t have all the solutions to every problem that has been identified, and I won’t claim to have them. What I can do is help highlight the issues that we see, and raise them with a group of people who are capable of developing solutions.
