Opening up Labour membership – to Lib Dems and beyond

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

Since the election just 10 days ago, Labour have now gained 13,000 new members. Many of those are former Lib Dem voters or members, who have joined Labour partly in disillusionment that the Lib Dems have gone into coalition with the Tories.

Many of those reasons can be found on the Labour website now, and include:

John Healey has written to Harriet Harman and Ray Collins to request that any card-carrying Lib Dems who wish to join the Labour Party should be able to do so for free for six months. Healey has also coordinated and sent the following two-sided leaflet to CLPs to deliver around their constituencies should they choose:

Any CLP who would like a copy of the leaflet should contact [email protected].

Progress is also running a petition calling on the party to open up membership to all at £1 for the next six months – and for that membership to include voting rights in the leadership election for all new members. You can sign that petition here.

Writing on LabourList yesterday, the NEC’s Ann Black said that she expected new members will be enfranchised for the leadership election.