Labour’s revolution: Membership almost doubles and support for Corbyn is overwhelming
Never mind Milifandom, here’s Corbynmania: Jeremy Corbyn poses for a selfie with a supporter as he arrives at the beginning of the Labour conference in Brighton [Image: Luke Macgregor/Reuters].
The evidence, compiled by The Guardian, will be a bitter blow for Tories and Labour right-wingers alike, but nobody can deny the facts now – can they?
Jeremy Corbyn’s hopes of remoulding Labour have been boosted by a detailed Guardian survey into the party at grassroots level that shows overwhelming support for him, a decisive shift to the left and unhappiness with squabbling among MPs.
The Guardian has interviewed Labour secretaries, chairs, other office holders and members from more than 100 of the 632 constituencies in England, Scotland and Wales. Almost every constituency party across the country we contacted reported doubling, trebling, quadrupling or even quintupling membership, and a revival of branches that had been moribund for years and close to folding.
Reflecting increased interest among the young, university cities and towns recorded some of the biggest rises, with Bath jumping from 300 to 1,322 members and Colchester from 200-250 to almost 1,000. Neither are traditional Labour seats.
The survey findings are borne out by Labour’s national figures, released to the Guardian in a break with party tradition of keeping them secret. Membership jumped from 201,293 on 6 May last year, the day before the general election, to 388,407 on 10 January.
Now the hard figures are out of the way, remember I mentioned about that nobody could deny the facts any more?
Here’s Peter Mandelson:
Party membership figures are a controversial issue, with the former cabinet minister Peter Mandelson, who is opposed to Corbyn, telling a Labour meeting in the Lords last month that “30,000 long-term members have left the party, real members, tens of thousands”.
But the newly released figures undermine his claim, showing a total of 13,860 have left since the general election, some of them having resigned while others have gone as part of natural churn. The increase in membership is continuing, with just under 1,000 having joined since Christmas Eve.
Oh dear.
This story isn’t over yet, but the information here should do much to defuse anti-Corbyn sentiment in the Parliamentary Labour Party, and possibly even in the Tory mainstream media.
One wonders how the BBC will cope with it.
Source: Revealed: how Jeremy Corbyn has reshaped the Labour party | Politics | The Guardian
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How about this one Mike https://seagullnic.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/labour-party-tops-half-a-million-members-under-corbyn/
I’m happy with either this or the Guardian‘s figure.
Looks like all the propaganda and back stabbing via Tory headquarters etc is serving to cement ordinary folks determination to kick this government and its hateful policies into history where it belongs.
Great Job JC… hold on in there. Together we Stand.
anything the media printed and discussed recently have been to support lies and right wing politics.
Im suspicous of any left wing bias from the guardian.
I don’t think it’s bias; I think the paper was simply reporting its findings.
It explains why the Tory press and media in general have been spewing forth such dishonest campaigns of vitriol and poison. The Tories are frightened of him.
The PLP are going to drag the party down unless Corbyn makes the party more democratic and allow the rank and file Labour members far more influence.
I don’t see a need for mass deselections (although there’s at least one I’d like to see booted out) most politicians will try to represent their party but have been brainwashed into thinking that that direction comes from the top not from the membership.
I think that part of the problem is that Corbyn isn’t that type of leader, he can’t use the party whip without losing all credibility, and the moderates in the PLP aren’t sure what direction to follow.
No, he can use the party whip, but would do so in the knowledge that he was demanding what the majority of party members want.
I think, also, we need to redefine the meaning of the word “moderate”.
You form a party because you have similar views (not necessarily that you agree on everything) the party whip is the great failure of politics.
A big part of Corbyn’s charm is that he votes based on his principles and has ignored the party whip when there is a huge conflict. (I wish more politicians would be as principled as that.) To use the whip would fracture the PLP and lose him a huge amount of support.
Corbyn himself has said that if people don’t agree with his views he has to convince them. Imposing his views, to his credit, seems totally alien to him.
the Labour party must be returned to its roots to provide credible opposition.
Any elected members who dont want to be part of this must resign. the hard left will soften when the party cleansed of right wing MPs and councillors.
Its only Corbyn suitable for this role. Blairites are counterproductive and want to cling to the gravy train at all costs are focussed solely on personal. we want rid of them and its essential they leave the party quickly.
Real reality lives!!! ON! ON! ON! to a Labour government!
Iain Monks. It’s okay to defy the Whip when you’re on the back benches, but not in the Shadow Cabinet. Also, there’s a difference between defying the Whip and rushing to the right wing press to say negative things about your own Party Leader and dissing him at every opportunity and trying to embarass him.
It would indeed be good to turn back all the ‘rightist politicising’ that Blair took ‘Labour’ along to…to get ‘elected’ and ‘beat the Tories’ at their own game…but in my opinion, some generally terrible decisions left me loathing Blair and Brown, and turning strongly against Labour. I do see credibility with JC on principles, but as a Scot I cannot believe how Labour shunned the Nation (that’d be the Scottish Nation) and actually did very little to be a ‘locally-focused National Party’ when there was all that serving of Westminster Central Party, and the ‘rightist’ party lines to be followed …Labour in Scotland was an easy MP tap against the Tories, but they totally mistook the cultural differences and lost the hearts and minds of the Scots voters. Labour needs to find enlightened grass roots followers again, and would do well to get centre-left, or more social democratic oriented…
So you approve of the direction in which Corbyn is taking Labour? That’s good to see.
I applied to re-join the Labour Party the day Corbyn’s victory was announced but my membership still hasn’t been confirmed. Between Blair & Corbyn I had been a member of the notorious Green Party and that seems to be the problem
Get in touch and ask what’s going on. Membership of another party shouldn’t be an issue if you genuinely support Labour’s current values.