21st century Membership and Supporters

What does a 21st century party look like for…Members and Supporters?

Our treatment and development of members and supporters can be seen to underpin and inform everything else we do. This starts with the need for a vision which sees the Labour Party as a mass membership organisation and an organisation which enables its own members to effect change in the places they live and work. Members must also be able to learn and develop as they get involved and contribute.

To become a mass membership organisation the membership of the party therefore needs expand significantly – moving from thousands to millions of members.

Much of the current challenge faced is one of poor organisational culture and the negative experience many members and supporters have about how decisions are made (governance), policies are developed and campaigns run. Put simply and starkly people too often feel excluded from decisions, poorly valued in terms of their skills and experience they can contribute (policy development and campaigning) and used and abused by party staff, campaign teams and those that hold positions of power. As a result it’s unsurprising many of the most talented never join, leave or remain dormant. The current support and efforts focused on Labour Party membership are therefore not fit for purpose in their present form and fail to enable the values we espouse to be lived out in what we do and how we operate.

The Party must therefore focus on enabling significant culture change, the development of quality relationships and the ability to develop members and their skills. Being a member of the Labour Party must enhance our lives and develop our ability to contribute to our communities.

The directorate will therefore need to be a strong and supportive hub – facilitating and enabling change rather than controlling or demanding it. It will need to provide a well run members service – welcoming, informing and helping members where needed. Improved technology will be vital to support members to connect, meet each other and remove the control by a few of members details. A wide range of training and development opportunities will also need to be offered to support members develop their skills and their ability to connect and work with their communities.

Vitally the approach to working with CLP’s will need to be differentiated and adapt to context rather than impose a one size fits all solution.

This post is part of a series produced by LabourList and Labour Values.