ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explain why decline of the grassroots membership in membership has taken place, but before discussing the membership figures over time, it is useful to try and estimate more accurate figures of individual membership than those published by the party. The only way to obtain really accurate estimates of the individual membership of the party is to survey key members of the local constituency parties. In one sense the problem of membership in the Labour Party is to explain why people wish to join at all. The relevance of this for the question of Labour’s membership is immediately apparent. The parliamentary performance, and the effectiveness of the leadership, might influence the level of individual membership too. Clearly, there are many influences at work which affect the true level of membership. The influence of the economy on the level of membership was examined using several economic indicators.
