Fake News in Murdoch Times About Labour Party Member Resignations

13th April 2018 / United Kingdom

The Murdoch empire continues its obvious attempts to falsify Labour party membership. Given the dire membership numbers of the Conservative party, now the only political party to have, for five years, undisclosed its own membership, you can understand why.

On 3rd Feb 2017, The Times wrote: “Thousands of Labour members have left the party in just over a week after Jeremy Corbyn ordered his MPs to back triggering Brexit.”

There are too many headlines like this that follow the same pretence. The reason is this. From the LSE: “In the course of a year and a half, Labour Party membership has increased massively. The number of full members has moved from 190,000 in May 2015 to 515,000 in July 2016.”

Since then, As of 2017, the party is considered the “largest party in Western Europe” in terms of party membership, with more than 550,000 members.

From the House of Commons Library: As of June 2017, Labour had 552,000 members and the Liberal Democrats had 102,000 members as of May 2017. As of August 2017, the SNP had 118,000 members. As of December 2016, the Green Party (England and Wales) had 46,000 and UKIP 34,000. As of December 2013 (latest published figure), the Conservative Party had 149,800 members.

Or another way to put it. The Conservative party membership is about one quarter to that of the Labour party. Or to be absolutely precise 27.1 percent.

From politicalcleanup: “Fake news in MurdochTimes. Truth: new members joining Labour at almost three times the rate of resignations”

One of four (unread) onslaughts on Jeremy Corbyn, plus a cartoon today has been corrected by Rhea Wolfson, a Jewish Labour National Executive Committee member – see the ever-vigilant Skwawkbox

SafeSubcribe/Instant Unsubscribe - One Email, Every Sunday Morning - So You Miss Nothing - That's It

The Times’ Twitter account directed readers to fake news linking a supposed Labour Party membership slump to recent trumped-up antisemitism claims by hostile organisations.

It tweeted that 17,000 members have left the party over the last three months, but was corrected in Rhea Wolfson’s tweet. A snapshot of its headline:

Rhea points out that The Times figure was taken at a point in the year when direct debits are due for renewal and some members go into arrears when debits ‘bounce’ for technical reasons or for lack of funds, adding:

“In fact, Labour’s latest membership figures show new members joining at almost three times the rate of actual resignations, although there was a slight lull at the height of the antisemitism slur”.