Labour Party Membership Numbers

One of the curiosities of the antisemitism and Jeremy Corbyn affair is the focus on party membership numbers of which Huffington Post gives an example.  The great gap in the story is that we have no idea why these people are joining or leaving the Labour Party and thus the effect it is likely to have.

It seems likely that many of the leavers are "last straw" leavers who are fed up with recent scandals.  The effect of these people leaving is actually to shore up the status quo within the party since they only people who are able to influence things like rule changes in the Party are the paid up members.  With the NEC now firmly in Corbynista hands, it is entirely possible that the NEC might impose a freeze date for any new votes on the leadership or anything else (a new clause IV, a plebiscite on some policy or other, a really radical manifesto) which did not allow new members voices to count until they had been members for (say) six months).  That would virtually ensure that the Leadership's grip on existing members became baked in.

Of course, that would be quite different to what Jeremy Corbyn has said through most of his career, but equally this was a man who wanted regular annual leadership elections until he became leader when they suddenly became evidence of a coup

Values vs Instrumentality

The big change is that joining the Labour Party is an instrumental act to influence who holds significant posts of power (e.g. MPs) rather than a statement about your own values.  The leavers who resign in disgust are in the "values" or identity camp.  Many of the people who joined just prior to Jeremy Corbyn's election appear to be more in the instrumental camp.  Joining gives them a right to vote, which they exercise however they like.

Movement vs Consumer

Where I suspect Jeremy Corbyn is going to find this disappointing is in building a movement.  A membership of instrumentalists is unlikely to see any connection between a desire to win internal elections and getting their favoured candidates in place and a wider movement.  Going to meetings, supporting the wider activities to build party capacity as a whole don't really give you direct payback as a consumer.