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Labour under Keir Starmer has haemorrhaged almost 200,000 members in just five years – leaving the party a hollowed-out shell of the mass movement it was under Jeremy Corbyn.
The latest figures show Labour membership has crashed from a peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019 to just 333,235 at the close of 2024.
That means Starmer has driven away almost half of Labour’s grassroots – the very people who built it into the largest political party in Europe during Corbyn’s leadership.
This collapse has happened despite last year’s so-called “landslide” election victory. A party that loses one in ten members in an election year isn’t thriving – it’s in crisis.
Starmer can’t seriously try to claim that 200,000 ex-members were all “anti-Semitic” – can he?
That smear – endlessly recycled to justify his purge of the left – looks ever more absurd as the membership base continues to walk away.
What we’re really seeing is hundreds of thousands of ordinary, decent people turning their backs on a party that no longer represents them.
Meanwhile, outside Labour, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party – launched only weeks ago – has already attracted more than 650,000 supporters.
That’s double the number still paying subs to Starmer’s hollowed-out outfit.
Yes, these are sign-ups rather than fee-paying members, but the sheer scale of it exposes the lie that Starmer has built a more “popular” or “electable” Labour Party.
The public appetite for Corbyn’s brand of grassroots, democratic socialism is still there – stronger than ever.
Compare that to Starmer’s party, which is sliding backwards in both members and money. Labour recorded a £3.8 million loss in 2024, even while splurging £94.5 million on an election campaign designed to reassure billionaires, bankers and the right-wing press.
Members are leaving, activists are demoralised, and the party is being sustained not by enthusiasm from below, but by cheques from above.
In contrast, the Greens grew by around 5,000 members last year, Reform UK claims 234,000 (though without evidence), and Labour has lost more members – since Starmer took charge – than the total number of Conservative Party members (or at least, those eligible to vote in leadership elections; they keep their membership figures hidden).
The story is clear: Keir Starmer’s Labour may have won the parliamentary arithmetic, but Jeremy Corbyn has built a bigger popular movement.
And doing it didn’t cost £94 million.
Labour is no longer the mass membership party it once was. Starmer has traded away its soul for corporate donors and Westminster respectability – and in doing so, he’s created the conditions for his own downfall.
His Labour is smaller, weaker, and less trusted by its own members than Corbyn’s ever was.
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Starmer’s Labour shrinks while Corbyn’s new party attracts hundreds of thousands
Share this post:
Labour under Keir Starmer has haemorrhaged almost 200,000 members in just five years – leaving the party a hollowed-out shell of the mass movement it was under Jeremy Corbyn.
The latest figures show Labour membership has crashed from a peak of 532,046 at the end of 2019 to just 333,235 at the close of 2024.
That means Starmer has driven away almost half of Labour’s grassroots – the very people who built it into the largest political party in Europe during Corbyn’s leadership.
This collapse has happened despite last year’s so-called “landslide” election victory. A party that loses one in ten members in an election year isn’t thriving – it’s in crisis.
Starmer can’t seriously try to claim that 200,000 ex-members were all “anti-Semitic” – can he?
That smear – endlessly recycled to justify his purge of the left – looks ever more absurd as the membership base continues to walk away.
What we’re really seeing is hundreds of thousands of ordinary, decent people turning their backs on a party that no longer represents them.
Meanwhile, outside Labour, Jeremy Corbyn’s new party – launched only weeks ago – has already attracted more than 650,000 supporters.
That’s double the number still paying subs to Starmer’s hollowed-out outfit.
Yes, these are sign-ups rather than fee-paying members, but the sheer scale of it exposes the lie that Starmer has built a more “popular” or “electable” Labour Party.
The public appetite for Corbyn’s brand of grassroots, democratic socialism is still there – stronger than ever.
Compare that to Starmer’s party, which is sliding backwards in both members and money. Labour recorded a £3.8 million loss in 2024, even while splurging £94.5 million on an election campaign designed to reassure billionaires, bankers and the right-wing press.
Members are leaving, activists are demoralised, and the party is being sustained not by enthusiasm from below, but by cheques from above.
In contrast, the Greens grew by around 5,000 members last year, Reform UK claims 234,000 (though without evidence), and Labour has lost more members – since Starmer took charge – than the total number of Conservative Party members (or at least, those eligible to vote in leadership elections; they keep their membership figures hidden).
The story is clear: Keir Starmer’s Labour may have won the parliamentary arithmetic, but Jeremy Corbyn has built a bigger popular movement.
And doing it didn’t cost £94 million.
Labour is no longer the mass membership party it once was. Starmer has traded away its soul for corporate donors and Westminster respectability – and in doing so, he’s created the conditions for his own downfall.
His Labour is smaller, weaker, and less trusted by its own members than Corbyn’s ever was.
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