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Blogger Andy Hicks writes about why there is no incentive for young politicos to join a political party
Total Politics has kindly asked me to write a second article following on from Engaging with Students. I want to cover a similar issue to student engagement in politics; recruitment and participation in politics, affecting young people especially. I previously referred to Young Labour and local West and South Yorkshire Young Labour groups and described recruitment problems as a malaise in British politics. The problems with student recruitment lead on to problems recruiting young people. How can young people progress in the British party system when the system fails to recruit them?
Anyone concerned with recruitment of new members and also for local and national candidates of the future will know Barack Obama changed the game in terms of giving volunteers simple door-knocking tasks and soliciting many small donations, often from non-partisan or formally non-political supporters. He transformed the fundraising model, no mean achievement in these times and also the way people come in contact with politicians. See for example, Moveon.org as an example of how to get people, and not just those who already support you, engaged in elections at a micro level. From such small beginnings, recruitment and fundraising can grow.
In this country, what do we have? Constituency parties and MPs don’t see it as their job to develop the local youth wings of their party’s constituency or region. Many politicians and those employed by parties were involved in their younger days. That involvement was likely to be of enormous influence on their current work. This involvement needs to be replicated all over again, year on year. Where are the next generation if these functions cease or fall by the wayside, if constituencies, candidates and MPs do not reach out to young members and those interested in politics, where else will future councillors, MPs, party workers and volunteers emerge from?
A pie and peas night at the local working men’s club does not cut the mustard. A gala dinner with £500 a head tables, likewise. Many national candidates lack local visibility. Who watches the news and thinks, ‘I want to be a politician?’ Who by the time they leave school, understands how the voting system works, how one party differs from another? You have to learn as you go along and many people never do. Therefore, they don’t vote. This disengagement on a wider scale leads to a decline in party membership, a drop in donations and a narrowing of the social and financial backgrounds of those who are active in party politics.
Youth Officers are non-existent in constituency parties as there are no young members. Young member organisations can’t solicit donations so there is no income. National and regional events are too expensive to attend and aren’t subsidised. The age of the average party member is rising year-on-year and candidates are chosen from a narrower band of society. This is no coincidence and must change to ensure Britain’s political future isn’t permanently middle-aged, middle class and middle of the road.
Andy Hicks blogs at Love Your Politics.
6 comments
On your point Andy I think the real problem is that joining a party is seen by many young people to be a rather costly and daunting prospect. We need to move away from the party member system and move towards an American style party supporters system.
I think the £1 membership for the first year is also good.
Generally though, if young people are interested enough they'll join, but nowadays people aren't ideologically committed to parties as they once were, so they tend to be more single-issue based, e.g. Make Poverty History, so it makes it harder for them to affiliate with a party as they're not used to splitting the difference on various issues and committing to one party.
This will never really change, though registered supporters who pay nothing might encourage these single issue types.
The example of Obama and using third party orgs like MoveOn.org and to civicl society campaigning organisations such as community organising bodies was vital.
The Labour Party and parties in general need to broaden appeal by freeing members to engage peers and talking about things beyond the mechanics of campaigning.
To be fair things are changing slowly and some of the lessons learnt on the Obama08 campaign are coming through.
Firstly, I suggest that it’s easy to be confused between membership and the general recruiting ethos which causes membership problems. I’m hoping to comment on membership structures for the next piece but the problem as far as this article goes is membership recruitment.
Recruitment is declining because there is no incentive to join a party and little understanding of what parties stand for, issues which the comments seem to be in agreement on.
In terms of fees; for example, I pay £1.59 a month which is unlikely to deter someone if they are enthusiastic.
The problem is, as mentioned here, many people prefer to join single issue groups and are unsure how political party membership works. Parties need to show where they stand in relation to these groups and also indicate what the average member does, or could, do.
The average non political person has no idea what canvassing involves or how/why meetings are run. Certainly, attending your first meeting is daunting, which is a crazy situation for parties to be in.
I agree on the need for a new non-affiliated and/or non-paying membership and measures such as practical incentives: regular meetings for newbie’s, full explanations of procedures, community organising, much along the American model as these comments suggest.
A shiny website doesn’t do this, which seems to be as far as we’ve got in terms of engagement, an informative one does, which should be as local as possible, ideally in each ward, linked to all the other constituency wards in turn and to an overall constituency site.
None of the main parties have this across the board, but they need to start now and build up a basic level of interaction including members and non-members alike in explaining exactly what a party is, how it works and why they should join in, not simply join up.
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