Branches are more than just foot canvassers

One of the few rays of light in this bleak month has been the level of new Labour recruits: 20,000 people joining the Labour Party since the Tories wafer thin win. Considering this represents a 15% increase in overall membership – it’s a statistic that should be raising eyebrows everywhere.

By now the mountain of red membership cards will be starting to arrive on doorsteps up and down the country. It will be a massive own goal if we fail to capitalise on this opportunity as new Members start feeding into BLPs across the country. These new Members, and the reasons that spurred them to join us, cannot be taken for granted. With no elections for at least a year (depending on where you live) pro-active Branch Officers need to be thinking how their Branch can utilise this new resource.  A year of stale nothingness and the interest and enthusiasm of the post-election cohort could quite easily die on the vine or slip into silent, absent obscurity.

Other than knowing, from the official party website, that “a lot of Labour Party activity takes place at branch level” and “Labour members can take part in choosing local council candidates” these new members have little or no idea what to expect. Anyone who’s ever read the Rulebook will know that the Objects of the BLP provides the member with the opportunity (and I quote) “to play their part in the party’s policy-making processes; to work together to run effective election and issue-based campaigns; to maximise the party’s engagement with organisations and individuals in the branch area…” Simple preliminary activities such as social / mixer events; the offer of an allocated person as a ‘go to’ person for information and explanations; a welcome / induction pack and details of existing campaigns / activities. Many of these initial ideas incur negligible costs and social media / ICT drives down costs even further.

Part of the challenge for each BLP is to ascertain why their new members joined the Labour Party, how active do they want to be in the work of the Branch and what knowledge, skills and abilities do they bring to help deliver and, in an ideal world, develop the existing Branch work plan.

New members bring new skills; does the Branch have the opportunity to explore new, different and better ways of working that weren’t previously possible?  Among our new members will be people with skills a Branch could use but never afford. It’s a sensible Branch that reviews the offering from new members and audits the extended skill base. We simply must show these new members there’s more to the BLP than foot canvassing each time there’s an election.

These new members need to feel their Branch is a safe place that nurtures their journey with the Labour Party from the outset. It’s down to each Branch to embrace these new members, guided by Labour values and reassuring the newest Member that their reasons for joining the Labour Party are acknowledged and their voice is heard.