Long ago, working in primary care management, I was struck by how the partners of an excellent GP practice, replacing a retiring partner, had not even asked themselves how their area might change over 20 years or so and whether this might influence their choice. In my Liberal Democrat local party and region, it was clear to me many local parties were stumbling on, doing what they knew, grumbling about too much work and not enough people, knowing their activists were ageing, but doing little to find new ones: plenty of hard work, but no vision, no strategy.
So I became an advocate for local party Development Plans before the English Party pushed the issue and made a development plan a constitutional requirement for local parties (that’s fixed, then). As Chair of my Region’s Development Committee, I’ve been encouraging and advising on the things ever since.
If you’re in a hole, discover how deep the hole is and how to get out of it. If you’ve made progress but reached a plateau, identify the pinch points and what can be done. A basic tool for this is a SWOT analysis (not to be confused with heavily armed police: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.).
If this is a good idea for local parties, as I’m convinced it is, what about higher levels?
Regional Parties will have strategies, but they may well not include a hard look at existing strengths and weaknesses. The English Party and the Federal Party have various plans, often quickly forgotten, but apparently nothing like a Development Plan; strategy means the next election (as in Ed Davey’s “Guardian” interview) and SWOT analysis could be embarrassing.
What would a SWOT analysis for the whole party right now look like?
Of course, strengths would include 72 MPs, with the credibility the election result brings us. Another would be an HQ election operation, unlike 2015 and 2019, that listens to local feedback, looks at Connect input and opinion polls and reacts accordingly. Then, a comparatively open and democratic party, compared to Labour’s obsessive top-down control; and many hardworking councillors.
Weaknesses? Are there any? There are. For a start, after the surge in 2019, by all accounts party membership went into deep and spectacular decline, though figures have not been published for some time. Our campaigns need activists; activists are drawn from the membership; so a deep decline in membership is serious, possibly fatal. Increases at general election time are normal; we hear this has happened, but how much? Without openness about the figures, no judgment can be made. But will new members fall away as most of the 2018-9 recruits did? Local parties should prioritise not just recruiting members, but engaging them, and not just in leafleting. Yet the pressure from the centre is for an almost Soviet programme of getting them working and harder, harder, harder! Fine, but can they also have fun?
Do new members encounter a ferment of ideas? What we have is bitty. Conference, with its fringe meetings and training, is a big plus, but the fact that votes on motions are hardly ever closer than 90% – 10%, points to a problem. Politics is about arguing things and there isn’t much real argument. Whether thanks to the policy-making process, or to Conference Committee avoiding tender issues, most motions are long, worthy and hard to disagree with. Healthy? I’d say unhealthy.
Then a look at where we now hold seats (and where we came close) raises issues. There are areas of great strength – outer south-west London, the Westcountry from Somerset west, and marvellously now Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, Sussex, Cambridgeshire – but even compared to 1997-2010, big areas of great weakness. Only three seats in the Midlands, distant from the conurbations; one (just) in Wales, where Plaid Cymru or Labour have replaced us in former strongholds; only four in the North, all suburban, rural or small town. During the 1997-2015 period, at times we held seats in Leeds, Sheffield, inner Manchester, Bradford and inner London and challenged in Newcastle. This matters: the Far Right across the Northern hemisphere has exploited frustration in low-income areas while the Left has little interest in them.
It’s already clear what kind of government Starmer will lead: centrist, centralist, managerialist, moderately pro-public services but fiscally conservative and not too worried about vast disparities of wealth – Blair without the charisma and devolution. When disappointment at Starmer’s New Conservative Party grows there, will we be in a position to challenge?
* Simon Banks is Chair of the Essex County Co-ordinating Committee and a former councillor, candidate and local party officer.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Mystery at Witchend is Went the Day Well? and Seven White Gates is A Matter of Life and Death
The long role of the Jewish community in Liverpool
Labour's post-election (non-)honeymoon: The Week in Polls
September now
Farron photos
Joe Bourke
Peter Martin
Mick Taylor
Michael BG
Jennie
13 Comments
Speaking of identifying potential strengths, I’m curious as to what extent the London party has taken advantage of the fact that it has the population of a region but the geographic size of a local party?
I’m not in London but it occurs to me that in many instances the regional party could act like a local party, and bring very large numbers of activists to bear on all local by elections, and to some extent on action days in different authorities, as well as fundraisers and social events.
Plus things like having employing organisers/agents to cover groups of parties to small to afford one to themselves. As well as making sure experience and talented members in South west London assist and train those in other areas.
David le Grice – I can assure you that you have described exactly what does happen in London. We receive an excellent weekly newsletter from London region sharing action days, training and social events. And activists are only too happy to help across London, in by-elections as well as during the GE. In fact, there weren’t many activists in their home patch in Kingston (where I live) on 4th July.
That’s good to hear Mary. Perhaps we should try to look at whether other regions can learn from what London does, the geography may make it harder to do at the scale of a whole region but maybe at the county or sub regional level. What id consider to be my local area contains four local parties yet the only significant cooperation that takes place is between the two that have an overlapping constituency boundary.
As someone who has been a party member on and off for 35 years, can I suggest why we may struggle to attract members who become long term activists ? People who join political parties are normally very interested in ideas. They have a particular set of values, perhaps some policy ideas based on their own experiences (any teachers out there who think they know some of the answers to improving education ???) and they are keen, so keen to get involved in the debate, to help shape the party’s ideas in some small way.
So they join. Probably they hear nothing for a few weeks, maybe more. There’s a strong element of post code lottery – if you live in a constituency where LDs are strong there may be meetings to attend, if you live in much of the country there will be no meetings to be invited to. Then your big chance…. Would you like to deliver some leaflets outlining our plans for local potholes and bin collections. Yes, yes, I know these are the issues that will win us elections in the long run (we are assured), but really, can you be surprised if members drift off after a year or so if this is what being a Lib Dem is all about ?
Ah, the perennial question of how to retain members!
Simon makes a good point about the continuous push to work members harder and harder – I’d say it’s not so much a Soviet push, more like a Maoist one! I live overseas now so am a bit distant from the party (although still a member) but one thing which I do hear from friends still active is that, because the money from fundraising events such as dinners, coffee mornings, etc has fallen, there are less and less of these and other social events where members can mix, particularly those who don’t want to or aren’t able to knock on doors or deliver leaflets.
I teach in international schools, and one thing we have to do every year is make sure our new staff are settled. We have social events, we have WhatsApp and / or Facebook groups, all to make sure they are happy while they work. I don’t see why we, as a party, can’t look as much at the social events as the campaigning ones – it’s about team building, and these are equally important.
(BTW – the Liberal Democrats Scotland Facebook group is a great example of this – we have good debates in there, keep in touch with campaigning, and see posts from friends of years back.)
@Keith Legg. It is indeed a perennial question but i’m not sure why, as there’s no real mystery. Let’s imagine you’re running a sports club. A rugby club…… or football, or cricket, or whatever lights your candle. Most people who join do so because they want to play rugby, so you have to give them the chance to get on the pitch every Saturday. And a bar for a beer afterwards and maybe a monthly disco and a Xmas party. Some older members or ex players are past actually playing so give them roles on the various committees that run the club, or a bit of coaching.
Now, substitute “politics” for “rugby” and run the programme. And remember politics is about values/policies, formulation and communication. The winning of elections follows. EVERY sports psychologist knows the mantra, “Focus on the process not the result”.
The problem (and this revelation will not please everyone) is that politics is about power in a way community sport is not. People covet positions of responsibility and influence which they see as a zero sum game. If you have more influence I have less. How many local parties allow members to attend monthly executive meetings ? In practice very few would come but those who did would probably be co-opted and making a huge contribution within three months.
Ross O’Kelly – I send out a weekly newsletter to all our members. We always publicise Exec meetings and invite all members. A handful turn up. Tbh I’m not sure it’s the most exciting thing to invite them to, but the regular invitation implies that we value them as members.
That is one way of finding people to take on roles, but it is not nearly as effective as meeting people at social events, getting to know them and finding out how they would like to be involved. We are always scouting for potential candidates and Exec members. Frequent social events are really important to build the fabric of the local party. And again, new people have to be invited personally to events – they won’t just turn up not knowing anyone.
My rule of thumb is that at least 25% (and up to 50%) of members could become actively involved, either in campaigning, Exec or backroom tasks, and that many local parties are not tapping the resources that they have.
@Mary Reid
“That is one way of finding people to take on roles, but it is not nearly as effective as meeting people at social events, getting to know them and finding out how they would like to be involved.”
You are operating in a compact urban long-time successful constituency.
Life can be very different in a sprawling rural constituency with a small number of members scattered over a large area. Face to face contact is very important for gaining supporters and members. Much more difficult and time-consuming in a sprawling rural constituency.
Before I joined the LibDems, I was in the Labour Party for many years. They typically had a branch meeting (covering one or two council wards) every month, and a constituency meeting (one Parliamentary constituency) every month. That meant, a meeting almost every two weeks to which all members were invited. The agendas would be discussion of any campaigning plus what’s going on locally, then often a speaker invited to talk about some political topic. Members could also submit motions, leading to discussions – and they’d often be on topics that members would disagree about so you could have real debates, leading to members feeling they had their say, and were part of a community that valued their opinions.
The contrast with the LibDems is stark: As I recall, in the almost-a-year that I’ve been a member, my local party has invited me to one discussion and one social event (which was just meeting in a noisy pub, so not at all welcoming as a venue if you don’t yet know anyone else and don’t drink), plus a couple of local campaigning sessions.
Even the general election largely passed me by because almost all campaigning I was asked to help with was in a faraway constituency I couldn’t realistically travel to.
Sadly, this means I still don’t feel like a meaningful part of the party.
One of the reasons I hang out on LDV is it seems to be the only way I can engage in any political discussions with other members.
I don’t know how typical my local party is, but it seems to me the LibDems really need to think about the party structure and how local parties engage members, and become more like Labour in this regard. Yes I know that’s harder when there are fewer members to start with, but I also suspect it’s a two-way process and one reason Labour are able to keep such a high membership is they engage their members so much more.
One upside though is email communication from the national party tends to be refreshingly good, open, and informative.
As a young Liberal in 1964 we met every week, the ward committee and the constituency met once a month. There were also letter/pamphlet groups who wrote about and debated idea and met up regularly to discuss ideas.
The Internet has killed that off. We now discuss and debate policies and ideas on-line and not face-to-face. I have doubts that this is a good thing.
In Leeds, we had regular supper/discussion evenings with speakers and discussed and debated ideas, though I have no idea if this still happens since I left Leeds in 2011.
Years of personal experience tell me that you get people involved, as helpers and candidates by knocking on their doors and asking them. I have had singular lack of success in getting people involved by sending out letters or emails or on the telephone. Way back, in the seventies and eighties, we used to recruit tellers by knocking on the doors of definite Lib Dems and asking them, sometimes probables as well, usually with a high rate of success.
There are many books on recruiting volunteers in the Obama and Clinton campaigns which make excellent reading. Face-to-face, not phone, letter or internet seems to be the most successful means of getting people involved.
Members form only a small number of the people one can recruit to help. Only reluctance to knock on the doors of relative strangers and asking for their help prevents us from having many more volunteers
Whilst development plans are great, too often they are used as a way to feel like you are being active than actually doing it.
I know of plenty of local parties who have spent more time developing their plan to contact all their members than actually doing it.
For a start up local party the plan needs to be nothing more than 1)fix your data so you know who your members are 2) call your members 3) encourage the most motivated one you find to pick a ward and win it.
Ref. Mary Regnier-Wilson 7th Aug ’24 – 11:25pm
It isn’t only ‘start-up’ local parties who need to pay attention to this. Any local party with a small number of members (and even smaller number willing and able to do some campaigning) needs to consider how best to use their limited resources. Spreading such resources too thinly is a waste of time, money and effort.
Succeed in your most promising area and only then consider expanding into other areas.