All parties need members to prosper. But they are a fast shrinking breed. Only Reform is bucking the trend
The largest Tory majority in the country is held by Rishi Sunak, who had the obvious advantage of being prime minister. The next largest was won by Andrew Griffith in Arundel and South Downs and I recently went down to West Sussex to meet the campaigners who accomplished this feat. Their homemade canapés are to die for (walnut and mascarpone on watermelon!) and their cheerful common sense evidently persuaded thousands. But they seemed to regard Tory HQ with scepticism, even contempt. No one I met was planning to go to the Conservative conference, which was described to me as a “lobbyists’ snakepit”.
That’s a bit unfair (even the lobbyists are abandoning the Tories now), but it’s true that party conferences are now more for corporate sponsors than ordinary members. The Labour conference in Liverpool will be crawling with outfits hungry for taxpayers’ money (which, it seems, Keir Starmer is dispensing quite freely). The Tories are laying on a leadership race but expect fewer than 4,000 members. The best hope of finding rowdy, upbeat and energetic activists is at the Reform UK conference.
Nigel Farage has rented a conference centre near Birmingham airport and not very many lobbyists are likely to attend. But the Faragistas are opposing the smoking ban and the net-zero agenda, backing net-zero immigration (not a daydream, as Sweden recently proved) and are waving the flag of liberty. This ragtag band of mostly-unknown MPs may well succeed in luring more activists than the Tories. And, in so doing, stand as a rebuke to all other parties.
I’m no great fan of Farage. He’s not a racist or Putin apologist but strays too close to this territory (tactically, to make the audience gasp) for my liking. The deliberately-careless way he speaks about Muslims, his blaming the EU for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: there’s too much darkness to overlook. But he’s the most effective political entrepreneur of modern times. He is playing a vital political service: showing all parties what happens if you take members for granted.
Not so long ago, every conference was at a seaside town: Blackpool, Brighton, Bournemouth. They were chosen for their cheap accommodation, to suit ordinary members with ordinary budgets. Slowly, this gave way to cities – Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham – with better restaurants for the lobbyists, journalists and others who were all putting their trips on expenses. Then, the parties charged lobbyists so much that conferences raised huge amounts of money. They stopped being for the members.
I’ve seen for myself how corporate involvement can narrow debate. The Spectator seeks sponsors for discussions and last year had a cancer panel with Karol Sikora, a renowned oncologist. He is critical of the NHS and the sponsor, an NHS supplier, told us to drop him. We instead dropped the sponsor, losing £20,000. As editor, I had the freedom to take these commercially painful decisions – but not everyone in my position does.
Next week, I’m hosting a discussion at the Labour conference asking if Ed Miliband’s 2030 grid decarbonisation target is realistic. A dangerous topic, it seems. Gary Smith, who runs the GMB union, has agreed to speak: he thinks this key pledge is laughably unworkable. An important point for discussion, surely? Not a single Labour MP is willing to debate him or defend the policy. Sponsors don’t seem wildly keen, either. It’s a shame. Party conferences should be a festival of political debate, not a domestic Davos.
Instead of members, today’s conferences are crawling with people who are (or want to be) in the business of politics. With government spending at its highest in history and waste everywhere, it’s certainly a lucrative business. When I was in West Sussex, I passed a mansion owned by someone who has built a fortune sending supply nurses to the NHS. So you can see why the conferences are seen (by everyone) as fundraising bonanzas. But you can also see why ordinary members stay away – or don’t join in the first place. Too much of the debate is fake. Too many important topics are kept off the agenda.
When William Hague was Tory leader, a party that once had two million members was down on its luck with just 400,000. It now has less than half that. When Jeremy Corbyn deprived Theresa May of her majority in the 2017 snap election, Labour had 540,000 members. It’s now down by about a third: saner, but fewer. The 80,000 members that Reform UK claims to have is still small, but double the pre-election total. Farage intends to pass more power to the members so they will have the ability to remove him, hoping to make membership meaningful. And keep the momentum running.
The real test will be the local elections in May next year. Farage is aiming to win more seats than the Conservatives and prove that his July result was not a freak but a staging post. It seems perfectly plausible. We’ve just passed the tenth anniversary of the Scottish independence referendum, where the “no” victory saw a surge in membership of the SNP: at one stage, one in every 50 Scots had signed up. Nicola Sturgeon had given them what Farage has given his members: a cause to rally behind.
More stories
More from News
More from The Telegraph
