
Ever since Starmer became leader of the Labour Party and began his policy of ‘uniting’ the factions by hounding out the left – speculation has been rife how the numbers of members have changed.
Under Corbyn membership touched 600,000 but no figures have been released since Starmer won the leadership. Even members of the NEC are denied access to the figures.
The Right has exploited this information vacuum to spread the incredible story that membership increased after the nasty socialist and ‘anti-semite’ Jeremy Corbyn was put back in his box.
This particular lie now appears now to have been exposed for what it is by the National Executive Committee elections.
This year 495,961 members of the party were listed as eligible to cast a vote. When Starmer was elected there were 552,835 registered members – so there has been a loss of 56,874 at least.
In the 2018 NEC elections 293,000 votes (rounded figures) were cast. This year the votes cast had halved to 135,000 which lends credence to the suspicion that as many as 160,000 have lost interest in playing an active part in the party.
Adding in the 57,000 that clearly resigned this year (for whatever reason) it means the party has taken a hit of around 213,000 so far and this does not take into account the flood of resignations which followed the suspension of Jeremy Corbyn.
Skwawkbox reported that so many resignations came in tothe membership department it issued a plea to other departments to release staff to help them handle the avalanche of work.
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