Abstract
All British parties, with the one exception of the Conservative Party, have experienced membership surges in recent years, thus contradicting the assertion of many party scholars that membership is in terminal decline. The ebbs and flows of Labour’s membership since the 1980s are examined here before considering both the benefits and costs to the party of the recent spectacular surge associated with Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. The conclusion is that parties are not prisoners of broad societal trends; they have the ability to influence the ebbs and flows. To better understand and explain the membership trends requires a combination of quantitative and qualitative studies; something which is difficult in contemporary academic scholarship.
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