Labour members are not as unrepresentative of voters as widely assumed
6 min read
Descriptions of ‘unrepresentative anoraks’ are wide of the mark, write Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley, who find that Labour Party members are only a little to the left of the average voter
It now seems overwhelmingly likely that Andy Burnham will be crowned as the next Labour leader, thus becoming prime minister, without a full contest ending in a vote of party members.
Plans are being drawn up that would see the decision instead lie principally with Labour MPs. Some might argue that this is acceptable, or even good, because members are not representative of the public anyway. Our findings suggest that assumption is not quite right, however.
Over the past 50 years, the powers of party members in the UK have increased significantly. All seven British parties now competing for electoral support have leadership election systems in which party members participate, with the sole exception of Reform UK. This trend in membership empowerment has resulted in both significant benefits and costs for the parties concerned. The benefits have been primarily financial, involving donations and subscription income in a climate of strict regulation of campaign finance, and also electoral, involving campaigning foot soldiers and online keyboard warriors. But the cost of this membership empowerment trend has been, on occasions, the election of party leaders who are unrepresentative of the party’s voters.
In 2015 the power to elect the Labour Party leadership was given to party members, registered supporters and affiliated members. These are the prevailing rules today, although the registered supporters’ section has been abolished and in 2021 the preliminary MP nomination threshold was raised from 10 per cent to 20 per cent of the parliamentary party. In the current House of Commons, candidates require the support of 81 Labour MPs.
To progress, candidates reaching the MP nomination threshold are then required to obtain support from at least five per cent of Constituency Labour Parties or three affiliated organisations (representing a total of five per cent of the affiliated membership), before the process usually moves on to a one-member-one-vote ballot. Party members are required to have a continuous membership of at least six months before they can participate in such a leadership ballot.
Thus, Labour Party members, in their choice of party leaders, typically play a key role in influencing the performance of the party in Parliament and in elections. This raises the question of whether this system is more likely to produce successful or failed leaders. The answer depends, in part, on how representative members are of the party’s wider supporters in the electorate. It also depends on the reliability of members’ judgements about who would make a successful leader.
A key to understanding this relationship between Labour voters and party members is to examine their respective views with respect to broad ideological beliefs. If the two differ in broad beliefs, this is more of a problem than if there are differences on specific issues that have always existed in political parties. Accordingly, we investigated this in relation to the two major ideological dimensions in British politics: the left-right division, which is primary; and the liberal-authoritarian division, which is secondary in importance.
We can identify the extent to which the attitudes of party members are representative of the electorate using data from the British Election Study internet panel wave 27, which contained questions about party membership and measures of ideology. This survey of the British electorate was conducted in 2024, shortly before the general election, with a sample size of 30,445. Some 471 respondents indicated that they were Labour Party members, making it possible to compare the opinions of the members with those of the voters.
The survey contained a battery of questions designed to measure the left-right ideological dimension in British politics. These are Likert scaled items in which respondents indicate if they agree or disagree with the various statements using a five-point scale. The statements are as follows:
- Government should redistribute income from the better off to those who are less well-off
- Big business takes advantage of ordinary people
- Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth
- There is one law for the rich and one for the poor
- Management will always try to get the better of employees if it gets the chance
By combining voters’ responses to these five statements, we can devise an overall Left-Right scale. The mean Left-Right ideology score for all voters is 10.5, which shows that the average voter in Britain is very much on the centre-left of the scale, whilst the mean score for Labour party members is 8.5. The distance between the two shows how ideologically close the members are to the average voter, although unsurprisingly Labour members are clearly more left-wing than voters.
Turning to the second ideological scale in British politics, the Liberal-Authoritarian scale, the survey included a battery of five items which can be used to identify this dimension. Agreement with the statements is consistent with an authoritarian set of values favouring tradition, obedience to authority, strict morality reinforced by censorship, and a punitive approach to dealing with crime. In contrast, disagreement with statements implies that the respondents are more liberal in their attitudes. The statements are as follows:
- Young people today don’t respect traditional British values
- For some crimes, the death penalty is most appropriate sentence
- Schools should teach children to obey authority
- Censoring is necessary to uphold moral standards
- Lawbreakers should be given stiffer sentences
Among respondents there is a clear skew towards the authoritarian end of the scale with a mean score of 16.7 for all voters. Labour members score 13 on the scale. They are clearly significantly more liberal in their values on this scale than voters in general.
But overall we conclude that Labour Party members are not that unrepresentative of their voters. A recent assertion by The Economist that the party membership is “an unrepresentative body of left-wing anoraks” is wide of the mark.
That Labour members could, within weeks or months, elect a new leader and prime minister should concentrate their minds on the qualities required for this role. So, what ought they be looking for?
Archie Brown, the distinguished political scientist and historian, has suggested the following desirable qualities: integrity, intelligence, articulateness, collegiality, shrewd judgement, a questioning mind, willingness to seek disparate views, ability to absorb information, flexibility, good memory, courage, vision, empathy and boundless energy. To this list of desirable virtues we would add another – excellent communication skills.
It is, to put it mildly, unlikely that such a paragon is waiting in the wings. And however good the system for finding a new leader, it cannot identify someone who does not exist.
There is a good argument that nomination and scrutiny procedures should be as extensive as possible, given it is not just Labour’s leader that will emerge victorious but our prime minister. Yet on this occasion, the responsibility may well lie almost solely with Labour MPs.
Patrick Seyd and Paul Whiteley are professors of politics
