Are Lib Dem members deserting for Labour?
Liberal Democrats activists may have backed the very civil coalition partnership between David Cameron and Nick Clegg, but misgivings within the membership have been widely reported.
At the top, former leader Charles Kennedy revealed to a Sunday newspaper that he had not been able to bring himself to back the deal, while reporters outside yesterday’s emergency conference spoke to rank and file activists quitting following the agreement.
Saturday’s Guardian looked at the membership figures under the headline ‘Disillusioned Liberal Democrats desert their party’, while a piece last Thursday speculated about “signs that disgruntled Liberal Democrats are flocking to the [Labour] party.”
But is the Guardian fair in its suggestion the Nick Clegg has allowed his party to sacrifice membership lists for ministerial posts?
The Claim
Such claims were rejected by new Scotland Secretary Danny Alexander in a round of weekend interviews. The Lib Dem minister claimed the party, far from repelling activists, was retaining and indeed receiving even more of them.
“Yes we’ve had some members leaving and I’m very sad about that, but we’ve had three times as many joining the party since the agreement was signed,” he told the BBC.
So what has been going on?
Analysis
Arriving at independent conclusions on both Labour and Lib Dem figures is hindered by a situation where it is only the parties themselves which hold the information on membership.
Full Fact contacted the Lib Dems for access to the figures quoted by Mr Alexander. A party spokesman stood by the numbers, telling us that since the coalition agreement approximately 750 people have joined, while 250 members had left.
However, for data protection reasons we were told that any further detail on the new recruits could not be made available.
So what of the Labour surge that has left the party, according to Observer Columnist Nick Cohen, “overwhelmed by thousands of angry men and women clamouring to join”?
Again, despite reporting a record surge in numbers, there was no detailed breakdown of membership available when we requested one, preventing analysis of the influence of union affiliation, for example, on the level of membership.
A party spokesman was unable to give us access to the figures, referring us instead to information submitted nearly a year ago to the Electoral Commission.
“We publish our membership figures every summer to the Electoral Commission so the last one we published was in summer 2009 in our statement of annual accounts,” he said.
The Electoral Commission confirmed to us that they hold membership information insofar as it relates to party income, but parties are under no specific obligation to provide membership numbers.
Conclusion
The Guardian’s suggestion that Liberal Democrats are deserting the party for Labour, is difficult to substantiate, at least in terms of membership.
While public opinion polls may suggest a shift in general support in such a direction since the election, both parties are claiming net increases in membership - claims we are forced to accept at face value.
While we have requested further details from the Guardian it seems the party membership claims reported are based on figures that the parties themselves are unable or in some cases unwilling to provide, and are not compiled by any independent body.
The Information Commissioner’s Office advised us that accurate membership numbers could potentially be revealed through a Freedom of Information request, although given the time delay involved, it becomes difficult to check claims relating to surges over a short space of time.
This does not serve as reason to reject such figures, but, given the frequency with which they have been used, that they are not always readily available from the parties is a cause for concern.
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