Were I a Labour party strategist I wouldn’t be too distressed by the news that the party has lost 26,000 members since last summer. On the contrary, I would regard it as the possible beginning of a very long road back to power.
Until Jeremy Corbyn came along there was a received wisdom that modern political parties were becoming isolated from the views of the public as a whole because their once mass memberships had shrunk to a few party faithful. Not only has Corbyn disproved this theory, his experience suggests that the opposite might be the case: having a large membership is a hindrance to winning elections. If driving up party membership is the measure of success for a political leader, Corbyn has been one of the most successful ones in Europe since Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin: he has nearly doubled Labour’s roll in less than two years, to make Labour the largest political party in Europe.
Yet hardly anyone, with the possible exception of himself, thinks it is going to help him win the next election: as his membership has gone up, so his poll ratings have collapsed.
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