Talk:Socialist Party (England and Wales)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Name

are they called SPEW? Adam 14:03, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Usually by detractors, yes. Warofdreams 15:29, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

In fact the organisation is not called the Socialist Party in England and Wales or the Socialist Party (England and Wales). Its name is simply "Socialist Party".

• But we can't have the article at "Socialist Party" as this is a disambiguation page, so "(England and Wales)" to distinguish it from other parties of the same name. Warofdreams 11:24, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Membership figures

Does anyone know the membership figures, compared with Socialist Workers Party, RESPECT, Socialist Labour Party, etc. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 86.133.228.126 (talk • contribs).

• One of their members told me a year ago that their membership was around 1,300. This is likely to include everyone who has any claim to membership; their active membership is certainly less. The SWP has a higher membership than the SP, although it's difficult to determine exactly what it is. RESPECT includes pretty well all SWP members, plus a fair few other people. I've got no idea what the SLP membership figure is, but their active membership is very small indeed. The best place to get estimates of membership figures for UK left organisations is the Weekly Worker, although of course these are often disputed. Warofdreams talk 10:35, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Socialist Party member Martin Powell-Davies gained 6,482 first-preference votes when he stood for General Secretary of the Teachers Union in the UK, Roger Bannister 41,406 in the local government union UNISON. This suggests that membership figures are not an accurate measure of influence. Derekmcmillan 19:03, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

The membership of the Socialist Party is predominantly active and you are not considered a member unless you regularly pay subs. This is in contrast to the SWP, many of whose members are not active and do not pay subs, but are still considered members by the SWP. jimbobalina2005 14:19, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

On last count the SP's membership is around 1,800, but are aiming for 2000 by mid next year. I would say they rival the SWP's membership, especially active members. Saying this however, the SWP do appear to have more members in London. (RedJim 23:56, 19 December 2005 (UTC))

jimbobalina's comment is both partisan and suspect: I've been a member of both organizations and the SWP used to have an annual re-registration process in which all members must be renewed or removed from membership. That meant that peripheral members were paying subs and saw themselves as members. The SP (which I was in for much longer) had no such process and often had nominal members on the books who we'd lost contact with or might not have identified themselves as members. The result was that the SWP's idea of its membership was probably more accurate. This was before the reversal in both groups fortunes; since that time the SWP markedly declined and the SP experienced a period of steady growth (or so it would appear if attendances at their showcase events - Socialism and Marxism - are to be compared).

The SWP claim that 4,100 attended their Marxism 2006 event(see [1]. How many attended the Socialist parties event?--JK the unwise 14:01, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It is generally the case that in times of great activity, for example in the run-up to elections, national conferences or demonstrations, and during major local campaigns on public services, Socialist Party membership that may be sometimes inactive participate far more. It is rare in most cases for members of the Socialist Party to be inactive throughout the year. Subs are paid by all members and paper subscriptions are taken out by the vast majority. It is also possible that figures of membership on paper may in fact be higher than those cited here, so that the distinction between active and inactive membership is made, though I can't verify that. Ellen 22:22, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

At SWP National Conference, the delegates were informed that the SWP's membership stands at around 8,000 active members (either active members or sub-payers) and around 2,000 ambiguous members. Or so I think I remember...

[edit] Marxist socialism and Democratic socialism

Is it important to point out that the Socialist Party advocate Marxist socialism, i.e. communism, rather than democratic socialism as many other parties of the same name operate the latter?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.38.72.238 (talk • contribs) 15 July 2006.