Thread by @ChristabelCoops

THREAD on Labour party members, as there is some surprise at the YouGov poll showing Keir Starmer ahead.

Party activists are *not* representative of the membership as a whole. This chart from the excellent @ProfTimBale shows most members don't leaflet or canvass. 1/7

Most have liked something on FB but that's pretty much it. They don't come to meetings either.

I used to be one of those members. I joined (like many others) after an election defeat but I was the single mother of a young kid. No way I had the time to be an activist 2/7

I ignored all the emails from my local party, I didn't vote in the NEC elections because I had no idea who the candidates were. But I did vote in the leadership election.

This behaviour is *far* more typical of an average Labour member, than being actively involved 3/7

But then my circumstances changed, my son was older. I moved to a new area and being a part of the CLP was a great way of becoming more engaged in the community. So much so, that I ended up becoming a councillor for the wonderful @LBHF 😁 4/7

But this transition is unusual - most people either seem to join specifically to be an activist, *or* have no intention of becoming one (and stick to it!) So the two sides of the party have little contact and little understanding of each other. 5/7

Members voted for Corbyn in 2015 and 2016 not because Momentum or anyone else told them to, they did it because they independently came to the conclusion that they liked him.

And they'll vote for a new leader on the same basis. 6/7

Perusing Twitter (which is just full of activists) is simply not going to tell you how *most* members are feeling about the election defeat, who or what they blame for it, and how this will affect their choice of leader.

Polling is a much better way of understanding this. 7/7