At 6,000 members, Labour is only slightly bigger than the Greens.
Does Labour really have so few members?
Even if they’re real, individual people and that figure doesn’t include unions as well, how can it continue to call itself a major party when it has so few people willing to sign up to belong to it?
National’s 2002 election result was worse than Labour’s this year but it’s membership at its very worst was several times better than 6,000 and has grown steadily since then.
It’s not very difficult to vote for a party. Membership requires more. It means at least a financial commitment and there are many other ways in which you can support and be involved with the party once you’ve joined up.
National’s membership, now many times more than that of Labour’s, is what provides its financial foundation and also the people who contribute to policy formation, fund-raising and who provide support for MPs.
In National, they are the ones who select electorate candidates and do so much to help them during campaigns.
Strong membership, strong finances and strong voter support are almost always linked.
But it’s not just the party which benefits from a wide and active membership, the country does too.
Without strong membership of political parties we don’t have a participatory democracy, we have politicians with very weak links to wide, grassroots support.
That results in parliament of the few by the few for the few which is the antithesis of democracy.
Why would anybody join them – National represents the working man better than the modern Labour party with its freak show, middle class, over educated, dofus MPs, children of privilege who have never done a honest days work in their lives.
Labour – the buggers wouldn’t know the meaning of the word – for them hard work is lifting a champagne flute at a lesbian’s book signing session
“National’s 2002 election result was worse than Labour’s this year but it’s membership at its very worst was several times better than 6,000 and has grown steadily since then.”
What does ‘several times better’ mean? Twenty times? Ten times? Five times? Interestingly, Bryce Edwards at http://liberation.typepad.com/liberation/2008/07/party-members-1.html shows that National party membership in 2001 (just prior to Bill’s Excellent Adventure into Mediocrity) probably dipped below 20,000, thus making it only 3.3 times ‘better’(?!). Is this what you meant?
Considering that the National party has always had a much higher level of level of party membership, this degree of difference should actually be concerning. Again, thanks to the meticulous research of Bryce we learn: “According to Gustafson, at its membership peak, National outnumbered Labour’s financial membership 15 to one”.
Current National membership is unknown as party officials won’t release the figures, suggesting that they don’t compare well with past levels. I doubt they are much higher than the 20,000 of 2001 however, as the general trend has seen declining membership in all parties, regardless of the personal appeal of characters like Key (who no doubt has won a few over). Lets say it is (being generous) 30,000.
Now National just won 48% of the vote (registered voters who could be bothered that is), surely they are at the height of their powers right? Yet they can only five times Labour’s membership? Jesus, this is a disaster, National is at near collapse! Call Joyce, get him to make some numbers up (a la MediaWorks) and then hit the pavement in Ashburton, Epsom and Tamaki. I don’t think they have the buffer to win in 2014, get the numbers up quick smart!
Now do you see how silly mindless speculation about (confirmed or unconfirmed) party membership is? I can spin figures to mean just about anything. Keep up the good work though.
Peter I know what the membership of National are. I was told in committee so am not going to broadcast them but will say your generous isn’t generous enough.
That said, given the importance of members for the democratic process all parties should be aiming for substantial increases.
note that because many unions are affiliated with Labour, those union members do not have to join the party again.
Hence there is a good pool of people who would be members, but already are indirectly. So these people arent included in the 6000 which would push the number up somewhat.
No idea how many people there are in this category though.
Whether all parties should be pursuing a mass membership model is a matter of debate, though I happen to agree that any political movement (parliamentary or otherwise) should be looking for substantial and meaningful support in terms of members.
Therein lies the problem however, as ‘meaningful support’ essentially means active and engaged party members who have a fair say on the direction of their political party. NO New Zealand political party enjoys considerable support of this kind, with most members being ‘silent’ supporters of the party, content to only send in their membership fee once a year.
Likely the remaining members of the current Labour party – whatever the figure actually is (and while I don’t trust Trotter as far as I can throw him, I think he is probably relatively accurate with his figure) – represent the hardcore committed members, while the membership surge in the National party is likely of ‘johnny-come-latelies’ who have no passionate support of the core values of the National party but like to be on the winning side.
This is not a criticism of solely the National party, but a reflection of the fact that the general public at best are disinterested in politics and at worst despise it. Those who choose to go to the effort of joining a party are unlikely to be the staunch, committed activists of yesteryear, but mindless drones who see politics as a battle of personalities rather than genuine values.
Ultimately the membership figures for current political parties are almost irrelevant to political debate, as the dynamic nature of these movements has been replaced by a ‘franchise’ model that sees all decision-making done by a party elite. 50,000 drones (a figure I have seen bandied about for National, though whether I believe it is another matter) is not necessarily better than 6,000 drones. If anything, party structure and internal decision-making matters far more than membership figures.