Labour has gained 20,000 new members since the end of the party conference season as it gears up for a general election following the Tory party’s implosion and Liz Truss’s disastrous premiership.
On Thursday alone – the day of Truss’s resignation after just 45 days in Downing Street – Labour gained 2,000 more members, with lapsed members rejoining and others signing up for the first time. One fundraising email on the same day generated almost £100,000 in donations.
Although Labour’s total membership fell from heights of about 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn to around 420,000 earlier this year, senior figures say it has now recovered to close to 450,000.
“People are really looking again at us. This is way above expectations. They sense that an election could be round the corner and that we will be the next party of government,” said one shadow cabinet source.
But the speed of the Tories’ descent into chaos and increasing talk of an election has created and highlighted serious logistical problems for Labour too. The party recently moved out of its headquarters at Southside in Victoria Street, Westminster, which is to be demolished, and has yet to find a new base from which it would run an election campaign.
“This is our biggest practical problem,” said a senior party insider. “We want a general election but we have not yet found a new home. We are a homeless party. Insufficient energy has been committed to solving this problem, which is actually the easiest one we face.”
The source said that senior party staff, including the general secretary, David Evans, who is being held responsible for failing to find a new HQ, were having to “find corners to work on the Westminster estate, or work from home for the time being until a new base is found”. The party is, however, confident of securing a location in the next few weeks from which to plan and run a campaign.
Keir Starmer has over recent weeks been talking to many potential “high value donors” willing to give money to a Labour election campaign, including the businessman and philanthropist David Sainsbury. While the Unite union has threatened to withhold funding because of disagreements over Labour’s supports for strikes involving its members, there is confidence that Unison, the GMB and Usdaw will all give generously.
Labour is also working to speed up the selection of parliamentary candidates. The reselection process for sitting MPs is almost complete, while 32 candidates have been chosen in key seats with another 33 selections due to be completed in the coming weeks. A source said polls showing Labour way ahead of the Tories had led to a sharp rise in applications for seats.
On 29 October the party will hold its biggest ever national campaign day on the economy and the effects of Tory failures on people’s mortgages, with every member of the shadow cabinet visiting target seats. Party officials are now working on draft copies of an election manifesto that will include pledges on green energy, health and childcare that were made at the Liverpool party conference.
The latest Opinium poll for the Observer gives Labour a 27-point lead over the Tories, the largest Opinium has ever recorded. Starmer’s party is on 50% (up three points on a fortnight ago), with the Tories on 23% (-3), the Lib Dems on 9% (-2) and the Greens unchanged on 6%. The poll shows that about 30% of 2019 Conservative voters have moved to Labour. A fortnight ago that figure was 25%.
Only 29% of those surveyed think Brexit has gone well so far, while 60% think it has gone badly. A third (34%) think it has gone worse than expected, although 9% think it has gone better than they expected.
The Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru and the Green party have also been calling for an immediate general election.
