Labour members under Corbyn preferred ‘party of protest’, shadow minister says
Members of the Labour Party who joined under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership “preferred a party of protest”, shadow Treasury minister Darren Jones has said.
Mr Jones was responding to reports Labour Party membership has fallen by 23,000 since the beginning of 2024, according to figures released to its national executive committee (NEC).
The NEC heard that membership numbers had fallen to just over 366,000 from a high under former leader Jeremy Corbyn of more than half a million.
Criticism
Labour has faced criticism from membership over the party’s response to the war in Gaza and a cut to its £28 billion green investment plan.
Responding to the decline in membership, Mr Jones told Good Morning Britain that “membership numbers of parties go up and down all the time”.
He said: “There was also a huge surge in membership of the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn and many Jeremy Corbyn supporters preferred a party of protest as opposed to a party who have had to make difficult decisions around the trade-offs in its preparation for government in the hope that we get to run this country.
“We’ve still got plenty of Labour Party members across the country, I think more than any other party.”
A recent poll suggested that Rishi Sunak’s Tories could be reduced to fewer than 100 MPs at the general election.
Conservatives “wiped out”
The 15,000-person poll was used to create a seat-by-seat breakdown, which indicated the Conservatives would be wiped out in Scotland and Wales, and hold just 98 seats in England.
The survey put Labour on 45% with a 19-point lead over the Tories on 26% and suggested Sir Keir Starmer’s party could be on course for a landslide, winning 468 seats.
Mr Jones said the party had more work to do to convince voters despite its significant lead in the polls.
He told Good Morning Britain: “We do have work to do to win the trust, respect and motivations across the country, not least because we performed so badly under Jeremy Corbyn in 2019, but the scale of the challenge is historic in size, and huge operationally for us to achieve.”
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So darren jones has spoken to every single person that has left labour, every single one of them said they prefer a party of protest? He is an idiot, people were inspired by what Corbyn offered! Since Mr keir starmer stole the leadership of labour the number of members has only gone down, just yesterday all the councillors of Pendle, (just outside Barnsley, lloegr) resigned from labour. In 2017 labour came within about 2000 votes of winning and if the election had been one week later than it was many believe labour would’ve won. There was covert action, within labour,… Read more »
Nope. They wanted a Left wing Govt. And they very nearly got it in 2017. And we know Labour’s Centrists militated against that outcome. The leaked internal Labour Party report into that election makes for some eye-opening reading.
What evidence does Mr Jones have for his party of protest jibe?
Despite his demonisation by the predominantly right-wing British media, Corbyn is in European terms a middle of the road social democrat, not some denizen of the extreme left.
I don’t regret no longer being a member of the Labour Party.
It left me; I didn’t leave it.
At least the Labour Party was recognisable as a socialist party under Jeremy Corbyn , under Keir Starmer at Wesminster and Vaughan ‘200k’ Geithing at Cardiff the labour party is quickly becoming a paler shade of Tory blue.