Labour has had a National Membership Scheme since 01/01/1989 and all the data below cover that. At some point we will add data from when it was first reported in 1928. In the meantime this useful Parliament Research Report covers that period in chart form.

A current summary of all political party membership is here.

And a table covering 1928 to 2012 is below. 

It should be noted the data from 1957 to 1980 likely overstated the membership due to many CLP's affiliating on a higher conference vote number (around 900) than their local membership. One can use1950s/1960's cinema attendance & football match attendance as proxies to re-estimate the decline in public participation (eg Collectors actually going outdoors in the cold during winter and collecting the membership in pre-online days) during the "rise of the TV" era and it is likely as a result that Labour individual membership was higher than 600,000 between 1947 and 1962 - higher than it has been before or since - but dropped below that figure after. It's also likely the membership dropped to its 1980's/early 90's 300,000 figure by 1968 when the popularity of the Wilson Government was at its lowest and a lot of "collectors" who ssutained the local figures dropped out of activity.

In the same era the Tories rose from 800k in 1946 to 2.8m members in 1950 (the Lord Woolton anti-Attlee Government "Mr Cube" anti-Nationalisation surge) and stayed at over 1m until the early 1990s (those younger late 1940's sign-ups likely lived a long time). However though Labour individual membership was lower it could claim up to 3.5m+ affiliated memberhip through that period rising to 5.5m by late 1970's early 1980's when TU membership as a whole reached its 13.2m zenith in 1979 and there were 300k shop stewards/reps compared to 100k nowadays.

The data below covers the National Membership Scheme from 1989 onward when Labour adopted consistent national counting processes as opposed to previously locally collected membership subscriptions.

Note: Important to be aware Labour Membership comes in two numbers:

• Total Membership (which including arrears)

• Paid Up Membership (eligible to vote in internal elections).

The data below specifies what type of membership total it is. It should be added that Total Membership including arrears has mainly been used by the Party under all types of leadership and Paid Up membership and arrears levels have rarely been given except when it has been revealed by the electorate number (ie Paid Up membership). Where it has been given is stated below. 

I have bolded the Total Membership figure which includes arrears simply so it gives a consistent set of comparative data over a 30+ year period. I appreciate some will focus on one or other total depending on motivation.

A useful academic study of earlier Labour membership is here: 

Labour Membership Data - 1989-2012

The 1989-2012 period will be "Total Membership" which is the number usually publicly given by the Party. That includes arrears.

I have added who was leader at the time the Annual Report membership data was published as Leaders and more importantly Leadership elections can have some impact on membership sign-up. Another thing that impacts on membership rises has been Labour losing a General Election to the Tories and people joining Labour in the aftermath. Important to also note under Leadership from all wings of the party have over the years been quite prepared to not report a significant membership decline until forced to under various reporting requirements.  

On the Labour Dashboard page, I have also, under the Deputy Leadership Election data, added some analysis of inflow and outflow of membership in relation to its affiliated levy payer vote at past Leadership elections. As the recent Deputy Leader election analysis illustrates (ie the changed likely politics of the recent TU vote within a party election) due to political events external to Labour how that flow operates now may be different to the past?

Details below:

Membership given from 1989 to 2012 is Total membership which includes arrears. 

Neil Kinnock era

• 1989: 293,723 - National Membership Scheme started which led to the phasing out of subs collectors

• 1990: 311,152 - the Poll Tax was a big recruiter for the party

• 1991: 261,233 

John Smith era

• 1992: 279,530 - A rise after the 1992 General Election

• 1993: 266,270 

Tony Blair era

• 1994: 305,189 

• 1995: 365,110 

• 1996: 400,465 

• 1997: 405,238 - for 19 years a peak after the 1997 General election win

• 1998: 387,776 

• 1999: 361,000 

• 2000: 311,000 

• 2001: 272,000 - an already declining membership starts a 90k drop over next 5 years with Iraq a big driver

• 2002: 248,294 

• 2003: 214,952 

• 2004: 201,374 

• 2005: 198,026 

• 2006: 182,370

Gordon Brown era

• 2007: 176,891 

• 2008: 166,247 

• 2009: 156,205 - lowest recent membership number at the end of a 13 year Labour Government 

Ed Miliband era

• 2010: 193,961 - an increase after the 2010 election defeat

• 2011: 193,300 

"Paid up" Membership from 2012 (ie eligible to vote in internal elections) courtesy of NEC Member Ann Black as well as some Total Membership (including arrears) data from Annual Reports

• 30/03/2012: 178,005 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (approx date)

• 31/12/2012: 187,537 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears 

• 31/12/2013: 189,531 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 26/06/2014: 181,932 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2014: 193,754 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

Jeremy Corbyn era

• 12/08/2015: 294,035 Leadership election Paid Up membership excluding arrears - big rise after a general election defeat and a Leader election

• 31/12/2015: 388,262 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 12/01/2016: 373,443 Leadership/NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (held summer 2016, early cut-off) big increase for a 2nd Leader election

• 31/12/2016 543,645 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 01/07/2017: 538,606 CAC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (approx date) - big rise after a far better than expected general election result

• 16/11/2017: 525,779 NEC by-election Paid up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2017 564,443 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears. Highest ever declared membership under national scheme.

• 22/06/2018: 506,320 NEC election Paid Up membership excluding arrears

• 31/12/2018: 518,659 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 23/07/2019: 450,000 News report - plus 35,000 (7%) in arrears. Total membership 485,000

• 11/11/2019: 430,359 NEC by-election Paid Up membership excluding arrears (cutoff 10 weeks before leadership election). For all of 2019 membership was claimed to be over 500k and no figures were ever given to the NEC but data came out in July 2019 with a news report and later the Nov 2019 figures came out in April 2020 when the electorate for the NEC by-election was revealed. The 100k decline in paid up and total membership in 2018 and 2019 (most likely due to Labour Brexit ambiguity as Green's and LDs saw rises with some ex-members joining) was not reported much at the time, but is relevent now as the Greens with a perceived as "decisive leadership, "anti-Brexit Corbynism" establish a 3-1 membership advantage over Your Party.

Keir Starmer era

• Important to note the only time that both Paid Up Membership and Arrears has been regularly given as well as Total Membership was at NECs from Jan 2021 to Jan 2025. This was not done under any period under any leader before or after. Before 2015 membership size had not been a particularly factional issue except from 1996-1998 when it was boasted as an improvement from the past for a short period.

• 31/12/2019: 532,046 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears (this likely includes a lot of Leadership election joiners)

• 20/01/2020: 552,835 Leadership election Paid Up membership excluding arrears- big rise after a general election defeat and a Leadership election. Second highest declared membership under the national scheme.

• 24/08/2020: 495,961 NEC election - Paid up membership excluding arrears.

• 31/12/2020 523,332 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 31/01/2021: 455,737 NEC report - plus 56,799 in arrears (11%) Total membership 512,536

• 10/05/2021: 440,399 NEC report - plus 48,636 in arrears (10%) Total membership 489,035

• 05/07/2021: 430,926 NEC report - plus 35,200 in arrears (8%) Total membership 466,126

• 15/09/2021: 410,000 Approx total given at NEC - likely paid up members

• 31/12/2021: 432,213  Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 01/07/2022: 378,688 NEC election (approx date) - Paid up members excluding arrears.

• 31/12/2022: 407,405 Annual Report Total membership including arrears

• Jan 2023: 382,000 NEC report - plus 25,328 arrears (6%) Total membership 407,328

• Mar: 2023: 377,000 - NEC Report - plus 23,757 arrears (6%) Total membership 400,757

• 23/03/2023: 378,578 NEC report - plus 17,233 in arrears (4%) Total membership 395,811

• 26/09/2023: 367,783 NEC report - 11,760 in arrears (3%) Total membership 379,543

• 31/12/2023: 370,450 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 01/08/2024: 348,469 NEC election Paid up membership excluding arrears (approx date) 

• 25/11/2024: 318,370 NEC report - plus 20,147 in arrears (6%) Total membership 338,517

• 31/01/2024: 333,235 Annual Report Total Membership including arrears

• 28/01/2025: 308,783 NEC report - plus 21,174 in arrears (6%) Total membership 329,957

Note 1: Higher % arrears in 2021 (8%-11%) may reflect members leaving for political reasons after the Change of Leadership and the 3%-6% arrears in 2023-2025 may reflect a more natural level of arrears

Note 2: My own personal current estimate of total membership from a small basket of CLP trends is 270,000-280,000. Important: This is only my ongoing 15 year estimate and cannot be at all considered definitive compared to a specific given number as my trend basket may deviate from the overall score at times. A 4,000 monthly decline indicated at the end of the most recent figures above would give a current 290,000 total membership figure so my estimate above may actually be too low and thus is not a definitive statement on the issue. We can also look at the annual rate of decline in the last few years by comparative annual report count and that is the following:

• 2019-2020: -8,714 - around 110k had newly joined for the 2020 Leader election and that and the Covid period likely slowed down any resignations or removal of lapsed people from the list.

• 2020-2021: -91,119 - clearly the main exit period of Jeremy Corbyn supporting members after his PLP suspension

• 2021-2022: -24,808 - Labour likely gained some members at the end of this period after the Liz Truss chaos

• 2022-2023: -36,955

• 2023-2024: -37,215

• 2024-2025: If we take the average of last 3 years drop it would actually lead to a figure of 300,242 for 31/12/2025 in the 2026 annual report.

Note 3: Below is annual membership by Leader period produced by Dave Levy. More on potential member motivational join date is in the next section.

Motivation to join is often driven by who is the party leader at the time, though there will also be local activity factors too. The data below is derived from a small basket of CLPs and likely to be less accurate than total membership number estimates due to varying local factors. However it does give a feel for the composition of the current membership. Useful notes below explain some context as not all these groups (eg 2015-19) may be uniform.

Kinnock/Smith/Blair/Brown eras - 13%

• Pre-1992 - 7% (Kinnock era. Membership join date only goes back to 1/1/89 when the national system was established)

• 1992-1994 - 1% (Smith era, but only 2 years long)

• 1994-2007 - 3% (Blair era. Perhaps surprisingly small, which may be because some resigned over Iraq & rejoined later)

• 2007-2010 - 2% (Brown era. National membership was at its lowest at 180k then)

Milliband era - 8%

• 2010-2015 - 8% (Miliband era. National Membership rose a bit to 200k in this era)

Corbyn era - 37%

• 2015-2019 - 37% (Corbyn era. This will include people who joined to support him but may now have a higher proportion within it of those who joined to oppose him in the two Leader elections who may have still retained membership since 2020, when many of his supporters will have left)

Starmer era - 42%

• 2020-to present - 42% (Starmer era. Around 13% of current members joined for the 2020 Leader election & around 90% voted Starmer or were Nandy 2nd transfers to him according to polling at the time whilst 29% have joined since Keir Starmer became leader)

The data below can be used to take the membership data above to calculate the Labour membership size in a given Nation/Region.

Nations/Regional Distribution of the Labour Membership in CLPs 

Based on past research from 2010.

• London - 21%

• North West -12%

• South East - 10%

• Yorkshire/Humber - 9%

• West Midlands - 8%

• Eastern - 8%

• Scotland - 7%

• East Midlands - 7%

• Wales - 6%

• South West - 6%

• North - East - 6%

A more recent estimate based on incomplete data (but is pretty accurate) had it as:

• London - 22% (+1)

• North West -12%

• South East - 12% (+2)

• Yorkshire/Humber - 9%

• West Midlands - 7% (-1)

• Eastern - 8%

• Scotland - 5% (-2)

• East Midlands - 7%

• Wales - 5% (-1)

• South West - 8% (+2)

• North - East - 5% (-1)

Labour Party Accounts

2024 Labour Accounts and Treasurer's Report - this was published before conference and ends up in the NEC Annual Report

Below is a useful chart of donations to Labour since 2015 recently produced in the Observer.

Current Policy

The final Labour Party Policy Programme produced  in advance for the General Election was published in 2023 and is set out in summary here. A full version was published online here. Under Chapter 1, Clause V of Labour Party Rules the Party Programme is the document that the General Election Manifesto is then drawn from.

The Labour Party also in 2020-22 ran a two year Policy Review called “Stronger Together”. The 2022 Stronger Together Update Report is here.

A number of other policy reviews and policy documents contributed to the overall Party Programme:

• Labour Industrial Strategy Policy Document of 2022 is here.

• Labour’s New Deal for Workers developed between 2021 and 2023 is here and here.

• The Labour Green Economic Recovery Review of 2020 is here.

Past Policy Reviews

Below for your information are a number of past policy reviews that contributed to previous Labour Manifestos:

• The Labour Regional Development Strategy review of 2019 is here.

• Towards a National Care Service Policy document of 2019 is here.

• Energy Networks Policy document of 2019 is here.

• Universal Basic Services Report of 2019 is here.

• The Labour International Development document of 2018 is here.

• The Alternative Models of Ownership Review of 2017 is here.

• The “One Nation” Policy Review completed during Ed Miliband’s time as Leader in 2014 is here.

Past National Policy

To help members and supporters think about the wide range of areas where debate is needed to decide future policies, below are recent national Labour Manifestos as well as links to Manifestos right back to the first one in 1900.

Labour National Manifesto 2019

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2019. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2017

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2017. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2015

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2015. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2010

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2010. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2005

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2005. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 2001

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 2001. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifesto 1997

This is the Manifesto Labour stood on in 1997. A copy is here.

Labour National Manifestos 1900 to 1992

The Manifestos Labour stood on from 1900 to 1992 can be accessed here.

National Policy Development

The Labour Party has an annual Policy Development Programme. More details on that are on the Labour National Policy Forum (NPF) Website.

NPF Annual Reports

The 2022 National Policy Forum (NPF) Annual Report is here. It refers to Sutton and Cheam Labour Party making a submission on page 94.

Past NPF Reports available online are at the annual links here: 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Declarations of Principles 

Underlying our policy agenda are fundamental principles that the Labour Party subscribes to. Below are national and international principles we subscribe to:

Nationally

Clause IV.
Aims and values

1. The Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few; where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe and where we live together freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

2. To these ends we work for:

A. A DYNAMIC ECONOMY, serving the public interest, in which the enterprise of the market and the rigour of competition are joined with the forces of partnership and co-operation to produce the wealth the nation needs and the opportunity for all to work and prosper with a thriving private sector and high-quality public services where those undertakings essential to the common good are either owned by the public or accountable to them

B. A JUST SOCIETY, which judges its strength by the condition of the weak as much as the strong, provides security against fear, and
justice at work; which nurtures families, promotes equality of opportunity, and delivers people from the tyranny of poverty, prejudice
and the abuse of power

C. AN OPEN DEMOCRACY, in which government is held to account by the people, decisions are taken as far as practicable by the communities they affect and where fundamental human rights are guaranteed

D. A HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT, which we protect, enhance and hold in trust for future generations.

3. Labour is committed to the defence and security of the British people and to co-operating in European institutions, the United Nations, the Commonwealth and other international bodies to secure peace, freedom, democracy, economic security and environmental protection for all.

4. Labour shall work in pursuit of these aims with trade unions and co-operative societies and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies.

5. On the basis of these principles, Labour seeks the trust of the people to govern.

Internationally 

The Labour Party is a member of or observer to a number of International Bodies. Their Declarations of Principles can be accessed below:

Organisations that the Labour Party is a member of:

Party of European Socialists (PES)

The Progressive International

Organisations that the Labour Party is an observer to:

The Socialist International (SI) The Labour Party has been an observer member since 2013. Labour or its predecessor organisations were members of the preceding Socialist International 1889-1916, Berne International 1919-1923, Labour & Socialist International 1923-1940 and Socialist International 1951-2013. 

Past and Current European Policy Debates

Though the UK has left the EU there are post-Brexit issues that still require cross-border co-operation and policy discussion so these documents provide useful background information to both current and past debates. The Party of European Socialist comprises all of Labour’s sister parties across Europe so their policy agenda helps us understand current debates on the UK’s long-term relationship with it’s EU neighbour.

Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2024

The Party of European Socialist’s Manifesto for the 2024 European Parliament elections is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2019

The 2019 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2019 is here.

Labour in for Britain Referendum Campaign 2016 – Archive 

There is also still an archive online of Briefing Notes we locally produced for the EU Referendum Campaign which we provide as a historical record of that time.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2014

The 2014 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2014 is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2009

The Party of European Socialists Manifesto 2009 is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 2004

The 2004 Labour European Elections Manifesto is here.

The 2004 Party of European Socialists Manifesto is here.

Labour European Elections Manifesto 1999

The 1999 Party of European Socialists Manifesto is here.

Test

Test

2025 Nominations

Test

STV Elections in Labour

2020 NEC Elections

STV explanation here and here 

Rules

Labour Rule Book 2025

Local Rules and Standing Orders

CLP Reorganisation Guide 2023

CLP AGM Guide 2023

CLP and Branch Job Descriptions

Managing Meetings

Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - 1939 Edition

Citrine's ABC of Chairmanship - Digitised version of the 1939 Edition

For information - other Labour Movement Meeting Guides

• Wal Hannington's Mr Chairman

• Duncan Hallas - Hints on Chairmanship

Important Note: Robert's Rules of Order is a US Guide to running meetings and has some differences in the procedure from the UK trade unionist guides written above. 

Rule Change Reviews

Refounding Labour Consultation 2011

Refounding Labour Initial Findings 2011

News reports on the 2011 changes here, here, here, here, here, here and here

Academic Study into the Miliband changes

Collins Review

The "institutional turn" in Labour since 2020

Background documents prior to then

Labour Unions

Labour First

Debates on the institutional role of Rules

The Tyranny of Structurelessness 1972

Test

Neil Kinnock 1985 Conference Speech

Labour NEC Walkout 1986

Labour NEC Digital Walkout 2020

Test