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Labour membership falls by 23,000 over Gaza and
green policies
Party claims financial position still strong as it
continues to hold a commanding lead in opinion polls
Toby Helm
Political Editor
Sat 30 Mar
2024 14.00 GMT
Labour has
suffered a sharp fall in membership over the past two months following
controversies over its policy on Gaza and its U-turn on green investment,
according to figures released to its National Executive Committee (NEC). The
drop of more than 23,000 members comes despite the party holding a commanding
lead in the opinion polls, which suggests it is now seen by the wider
electorate as ready and able to form the next government, after 14 years of
Tory rule.
Labour
sources said the party’s overall financial position remained strong despite
membership subscriptions falling off, because donations large and small were
healthy, and the expectation was that the unions would still give very
substantial backing to the election effort.
In a report to the NEC last week, the party’s general
secretary, David Evans, caused surprise when he revealed that membership, which
had stood at 390,000 in January, had plummeted to 366,604 at the latest count,
with more than 11,700 of these being in arrears. Labour membership reached a
peak at the end of 2019 when it hit over 532,000.
One senior
Labour figure who was there said: “It is a big fall in just two months. People
were surprised, even taken aback.”
Labour
insiders believe that the fall has been caused primarily by anger among Muslim
and others Labour supporters over Keir Starmer’s position on Gaza and his
refusal over several months to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Since the
Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October, Labour’s refusal over many weeks to call
for a ceasefire led to the resignation of at least 70 Labour councillors. It
also triggered a loss of control in four councils: Oxford, Burnley, Hastings
and Norwich.
At the same
time, Starmer faced rebellions by many of his own MPs, as well as frontbench
resignations. In November, 10 frontbenchers resigned or were sacked from his
team after voting for a Scottish National party motion that called for a
ceasefire.
Jess
Phillips, one of the most high-profile shadow ministers to resign, said at the
time: “I have to use my voice to try, and wherever possible, move a dial. And
look, I think this dial will move. I think that it won’t be too long before the
US and the UK feel that the military action is achieving nothing.”
The party
high command has also felt the wrath of green supporters over its decision to
drop a commitment to spend £28bn if it wins the general election on its green
investment plan, a centrepiece of a programme to drive economic growth.
Early in February – in a move that prompted an angry
response from environmental groups, unions and some in the energy sector –
Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, jointly announced they would
slash the green prosperity plan from £28bn a year to under £15bn, only a third
of which would be new money.
Luke
Akehurst, a member of the NEC, said the party was in a strong financial
position despite some cancelling their memberships.
“Party
membership is still at historically high levels. Labour only had 150,000
members at the end of its last period in office [in 2010],” he said. “The state
of the opinion polls suggest there is no correlation between membership and
electoral popularity.”
Grassroots
leftwing group Momentum, which has become increasingly critical of Starmer
recently, said: “These figures highlight the danger of Labour’s leadership
taking its base for granted. From a failure to oppose Israel’s brutal war on
Gaza to morale-damaging U-turns and the mistreatment of Diane Abbott, Keir
Starmer is alienating swathes of Labour’s core support. Members are the
lifeblood of Labour – their departure en masse should set alarm bells ringing.”
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