the impact of political marketing on internal party democracy by darren lilleker

Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 58 No. 3 © The Author [2005]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Hansard Society for Parliamentary Government; all rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected] doi: 10.1093/pa/gsi052

Parliamentary Affairs Vol. 58 No. 3, 2005, 570–584Advance Access Publication 7 July 2005

The Impact of Political Marketing on Internal Party Democracy

BY DARREN G. LILLEKER

THE introduction of marketing concepts and philosophy into politicalpolicy formulation and communication is increasingly seen as a corefeature of party electoral strategy. Over the past four decades partiesacross Europe have brought in consultants to support their campaign-ing, conducted research to aid the design of communication and usedtechniques associated with branding when constructing symbolic rep-resentations of their party. Leaders’ style and image, key messages,party motifs, as well as the various modes of advertising, are all partof sophisticated marketing strategies more associated with producersof fast moving consumer goods than with political parties. Whilstsome commentators argue that such developments are necessary inthe face of an increasingly non-aligned, apolitical and consumeristelectorate, it is also suggested that such strategies have negative impli-cations for the future of politics in western liberal democracies. Criticsof political marketing argue that it has replaced ideology withopportunism and downgraded the role of party members, exacer-bating the crisis of support and legitimacy currently facing politicalparties.

It is possible to argue that political marketing can offer benefits to thevoters, by providing greater democratisation through constant marketresearch. In nations where the party structure is weak, and democracyis not fully embedded, the design of party policy around voter groups’needs and wants may underpin the development of democracy. How-ever, within the majority of western democracies, where parties initiallyformed out of groups claiming to represent societal segments—such asthe British Labour Party’s historical link with the trade union move-ment—the relationship between voters and parties is more complex.Parties are embedded within society; their names signify certain values,policies and beliefs. On the basis of this they have a broad range ofsupporters with differing levels of loyalty and attachment. There arepaid-up members who act as advocates for the party and provide activesupport during elections campaigns; there are loyal supporters, whoperform many of the same functions despite not holding formal mem-bership; and, finally, there are weak supporters, whose loyalty is morefragile and who are more likely to adopt an economic model whendetermining their level of support.

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The economic model of voting is said to prevail amongst the unde-cided or floating voter, and has been referred to in America as ‘pocketbook voting’. This model infers that voters make decisions about whichparty to support, based upon a calculation of which party or candidatewill provide them with the better standard of living and best respond totheir individual needs and concerns. This apparent quantitative shiftaway from concern with ideology and belief in codes or creeds, towardsa greater focus on which party would be the best managers has createda greater number of floating voters, whose support is critical for a partyseeking to win power.

With partisanship decreasing and fewer voters possessing lifetimeattachments to one party or another, the floating voter is seen as animportant segment that needs strategic targeting through political mar-keting. Brands divide the market between them, squeezing out competi-tion and staking a claim on key segments. These can be dividedgeographically or by socio-demographics; the major supermarkets willcompete on the borders of their catchments for customers, while otherswill target poorer households. Importantly they will seek to understand‘their’ customers and provide the goods and services they require. Par-ties are increasingly attempting to develop strategies that target thesame segment—floating voters—overlooking those who they wouldonce have considered ‘their’ voters and who in turn saw the party as‘theirs’. This approach leads to a breakdown in the relationshipbetween the party and its members and loyal supporters, as well as withsections of its weaker support. Such a strategy could have a profoundlynegative effect on political parties as we know them.

This article focuses on the effects of political marketing upon internalparty democracy in the British Labour and Conservative Parties. Theempirical data is drawn from a range of sources, including: focusgroups with current and former Labour Party members from heartlandLabour constituencies; interviews with Conservative MPs, prospectiveparliamentary candidates from the 2001 General Election, and Con-servative Association members from one solid Conservative stronghold;and data gathered from a survey of voters during the 2004 local andEuropean Parliament elections. The article looks at the nature of theparties’ internal relations, their implementation of political marketingtechniques and the resultant attitudes of members and supporters. Itthen offers some general observations regarding the changing nature ofparties and their internal relations as they appear to move towards anelectoral professional model. First, however, it is useful to explore thenormative view of the relationship between parties and their members.

Parties and members: working together for shared goals? There are a number of perspectives from which we can study the roleand motivations of party members and the way in which parties could orshould interact with their membership. Without developing a theoretical

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analysis of parties’ internal relations, there are a number of importantissues that need to be introduced to provide the context for the discus-sion. The first key point is why people join political parties. Joining apolitical organisation suggests a commitment to its values and pro-gramme. While it is clear that people with environmental concerns willbe more likely to join organisations such as Greenpeace, Friends of theEarth or the Green Party, it is less tangible why individuals join a masspolitical party. Parties such as Labour and the Conservatives do notexist to raise awareness of one particular cause or to defend a particularsocial group; what members recognise is a shared social vision. Collec-tively, the parties are working to create a certain kind of society basedon key values to which the membership subscribe, and will develop apolitical programme that is designed to facilitate that society’s creation.

The longevity of political parties in Britain suggests that they havedeveloped clear identities associated with sets of social values that areshared by large numbers of the public. Their identities are perhaps bestexpressed in the words of long serving members from both parties. Oneworking class Labour member, who joined the party in 1949 andremains a loyal member and supporter, argued: ‘Labour is for the littlepeople in the nation, it defends the poor and downtrodden. Despite thepower of business, it does what it can for people like me.’ While therewas no theoretical basis to this statement, such as a mention of social-ism, or any practical examples to explain what he meant in real terms,this rationale was central to this individual’s view of the party; he per-sonally linked it to why he would always support Labour. A Conserva-tive, who joined the party in 1954, offered a similarly conceptualperspective when asked why she had joined and remained a staunchmember: ‘We are for a strong nation based upon the power of thepeople to go about their lives, prospering, building their families andhomes and supporting them through hard work. We don’t think weshould do everything for those who won’t do for themselves; we thinkthose who invest deserve to get a return.’

While neither of the above quotes should be taken as a statement ofeither party’s political identity (though they mirror to some extent thestatements from many of the respective party leaders over the last fortyor so years) they represent the motivational factors of two members andare indicative of why people join. The belief in a common societal goalmotivates people not just to join but to support campaigning activities.Some give money; others give a great deal of their time to trying to get‘their’ parties elected. They are the parties’ foot-soldiers, they will runlocal offices, organise and coordinate campaigning activities, deliverleaflets, canvass voters and knock-up their supporters on election day:as such they are the lifeblood of a party. The lack of state funding in theUK makes such members of great importance. Evidence suggests thatlocal campaigning is increasingly important in generating support for aparty and encouraging electoral turnout generally.1 Especially in target


seats, those where there is a narrow margin between the two majorcompetitors, the activity of grass roots members in leaflet delivery,door-to-door canvassing and general advocacy work is crucial to thesuccess of a party at the polls. Consequently, members are needed—though party leaders may sometimes wish they were not.

The party leaderships’ need for members gives those members power.Members may not always exercise their power, and the potential forthem to express themselves may well be limited, however they remain agroup that demands a say over the party’s direction. Sometimes theywill withhold their services because they disagree with the message on aleaflet, a policy being advocated or the candidate or leader being pro-moted. If the party moves away from the core principles that motivatemembers to join and be active supporters, some will withdraw theirsupport and membership. The use of political marketing, as discussedfurther below, tends to shift power away from the local associationsand members towards the central office. Equally, associated strategieshave the tendency to shift power away from core supporters and mem-bers towards the floating voter. These twin factors can cause grass rootsmembers and party leaders to become more distant: for some membersit can cause a complete breakdown of relations ending in divorce.

Bringing the marketing in: changing the balance of power The introduction of a marketing philosophy to political behaviournecessitates changes not only in the way that parties develop policy orcommunicate messages, but also in the way that party leaders and strat-egists think. This section focuses on the reorientation of the balance ofpower necessitated for the implementation of political marketing strate-gies and discusses how this shapes the UK parties’ political pro-grammes. The models of political marketing developed by BruceNewman and Jennifer Lees-Marshment suggest a linear top-downapproach: the party leaders gather data from market intelligence,develop a political strategy—including both policy and communication,and filter this throughout the party to ensure a coherent campaign.2 Therole of market intelligence in the policy development process is fairlyopaque because it is difficult to link directly the gathering of data to theproduction of a manifesto promise, campaign message or political out-come. Nevertheless it is clear that power must be reoriented in the pro-cess of marketisation. Decision-making becomes centralised within aleadership cadre, which can leave ordinary members feeling alienated.

The removal of power from the mass membership is, perhaps, mostobvious in the case of the UK Labour Party from the 1990s onwards. Inthe protracted review process which began in the mid 1980s, Labour’sstrategy guru Philip Gould suggested that the party should reorient itspolitical programme towards ‘Middle England’: an amorphous groupthat had abandoned Labour in favour of the Conservatives. Marketresearch showed that they could be tempted back if changes were made


to the party, in particular weakening its ties to the trade unions andabandoning of its policy of nationalisation. Despite an influx of newmembers, some of whom were from within ‘New’ Labour’s targetgroup, large sections of the existing membership were concerned aboutthe reforms being enacted in the name of securing broader support. Inparticular, many expressed deep unease about the reform of clause IVof the Labour constitution, which had been drafted in 1918 and con-tained the commitment to the ultimate object of ‘common ownership ofthe means of production’. Though, in practice, clause IV had exercisedlittle influence over Labour policy since the 1940s—particularly whenthe party had been in government—its significance lay in its aspirationto create a socialist society. The newer version, accepted at the April1995 special party conference, was seen by critics as vague and markinga decisive break between ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Labour.

What is significant about the redesign of the party, and its subsequentmode of policy design, is that it was rigidly controlled by the leadership.Market research was employed to uncover what it was that ‘MiddleEngland’, the floating C1 or C2 voters, wanted politically. What theyappeared to want was a party that descended from the Conservatives—although not the Conservatives as they were in the mid 1990s, particu-larly after the damaging debacle surrounding the UK’s 1992 withdrawalfrom the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The economy and lawand order were high priorities, as were more traditional welfare policiesthat were identified as Labour’s strengths. Importantly, research indi-cated that disunity was unattractive in a party. The Conservatives’ openwarfare over Britain’s position in the European Union lost the party,and its leader, John Major, much credibility. The Labour leadershipteam and their advisors created what some academics have described asa slightly adjusted version of Thatcherism. In an effort to marginalizeand minimise dissent over the rightward policy shift, enormous empha-sis was placed on the need to secure victory at the polls after eighteenconsecutive years of Conservative rule. The problem for Labour’s lead-ership was that dissent did not go away. Figures with little public status,such as the disbarred candidate for Leeds North East and Labour NECconstituency representative Liz Davies, were awarded celebrity status asthey highlighted the ‘Stalinism’ within the party. Dissent was met byincreasingly fierce briefing in the lobby by Labour’s ministers and pressofficers, partly resulting in the invention of spin as Labour’s sleaze.Thus marketisation of the Labour Party removed the vestiges of demo-cracy that many in the party saw as fundamental. NEC members arguedthat they were marginalized in favour of the Blairite National PolicyForum, while defecting MP Paul Marsden recorded stories of bullyingby the whips for his opposing air strikes against Afghanistan. Labour’sstory is perhaps a question of marketisation, but at what cost?3

Labour MPs and candidates who do not support what is sometimesreferred to as ‘The Blair Project’ express serious misgivings about the


way the party conducts politics. There is evidence that backbenchershave become increasingly militant and are often willing to oppose theparty leadership in significant numbers. A number of East MidlandsMPs became increasingly disillusioned around the 2001 General Elec-tion following the party’s attitude to Tess Kingham, who had beenelected to the Commons in 1997 but refused to stand again due to the‘pressures’ placed upon her. Fellow party members suggested that herdecision was chiefly due to the way in which she was treated by thewhips after showing opposition to the reforms to benefits for singleparents. David Lock, Labour MP for Wyre Forest 1997–2001, wasreportedly not allowed to become involved in saving accident and emer-gency treatment at the local Kidderminster General Hospital, on thegrounds that ‘it is not the government’s role to become involved in thedecision-making of health authorities’. He was subsequently defeated atthe 2001 election by an Independent candidate who campaigned solelyon the hospital question. Fellow candidates felt they could be similarlyhindered in doing their job. One unsuccessful candidate remarked, ‘it isimpossible to serve a constituency if the party ties your hands, I’m gladI lost in this climate’. Following Paul Marsden’s defection to the LiberalDemocrats, a former Labour colleague observed that it was unsurpris-ing that ‘some people can’t take that pressure’. More tellingly, somecandidates argued that the party seemed no longer interested in ‘con-science politics’, focussing instead on ‘good management’. In the era ofmanagerial politics, ideas may still underpin political decisions, butonly if gathered from the market and not from an abstract set of ideals.This attitude means that decisions cannot be open for ideologicaldebate, a shift some find difficult to accept.

The Conservative attempt to become market-oriented was less suc-cessful, as power could not be wrested from the semi-autonomous asso-ciations around which the party is formed. However, this meant thatinternal democracy, and unity between leaders and members around thefuture direction of the party, was maintained to a far greater extentthan in the Labour Party. However, towards the final years of MargaretThatcher’s leadership, and subsequently Major’s premiership, the par-liamentary party descended into disunity and was perceived by voters aslacking competence, as well as being out of touch after eighteen years inpower. William Hague’s first task on becoming leader in 1997 was toattempt to follow the Spanish Conservative Prime Minister Aznar’sthree steps to election victory: show the party who is boss; establish theparty as a credible opposition; and position the party in the public per-ception as a credible opposition. In 2005, the Conservative Party stillseems unable to reach the second step.

While Hague and his successor, Iain Duncan Smith, both recognisedthe need to reposition the party in line with mainstream public opinion,the chief obstacle to achieving that goal was the membership. Thisobservation was drawn from inferences made by prospective candidates


at the 2001 General Election, who struggled to match tactics designedto win votes with the demands of the associations that supported theircandidature. Many believed Hague was an asset, but argue that he wasconstrained by the party’s increasingly right wing membership and theirpower within the local associations. Attempts to reposition the party inthe political centre ground, through branding exercises such as ‘FreshConservatism’, in 1997, and later ‘Common-sense Conservatism’ in1999, consequently failed. As the 2001 election loomed, the party wasforced to focus on the few issues that united the fractious membership:Europe and Immigration. These were not, however, the issues of primeconcern to voters. As one candidate recounted, ‘the voters were interes-ted in public services; I had to bang on about keeping the pound andkicking out asylum seekers. I felt like some kind of out of touch nutteron the doorsteps of [the constituency].’

Iain Duncan-Smith fared little better in his attempt at blendingtogether traditional policy stances, such as Euroscepticism, whichseemed to be shared by many of the electorate, with ‘CompassionateConservatism’ promoted symbolically on the deprived Glasgow Easter-house council estate. However, divisions between modernisers whowere keen to make the party more socially liberal, and traditionalists,who held entrenched conservative views, limited the party’s progress.The trials around leadership selection in recent times have highlightedthe wider internal battle over the party’s future course. Harking back toAlan Clark’s history of the party, one candidate argued that while hebelieved the Conservatives should be simply about winning elections inthe country, his local association were more concerned with securingpower within the party. Internal democracy in the Conservative Partyhas remained strong, despite electoral stagnation in recent years, andwas enshrined in the principles of Hague’s intra-party reforms. In aspeech at the 1997 party conference Hague demonstrated that his mainmarket was the internal one. This approach may be effective in main-taining an energetic and actively supportive membership, but it becomesproblematic when the members are unrepresentative of the broaderelectorate.

Newman’s studies of political marketing in the USA did not find theweakening of internal democracy and shifting of power to the centre tobe a problem, mainly due to the weaker party structures evident there.A later study by Knuckey and Lees-Marshment found that George WBush had to balance compassionate conservative policies against tradi-tional Republican tenets to gain the nomination for candidature in2000, highlighting the need to adjust the product or ‘offering’ in linewith the expectations of the internal market.4 In the British context,however, Lees-Marshment’s analysis of the Labour Party showed that itfailed to respond adequately to the internal market. Rather, the leader-ship had followed a tactic of promising victory by using public opiniondata collected through social research to bend the party to its will in


matters of policy and presentation. This approach meant that the partybecame subservient to the Blair cadre, despite disquiet among somebackbenchers, election candidates and large sections of the member-ship. Concerns were exacerbated as the high expectations held by theseLabourites were not realised after the Blair government’s first term ofoffice. The failure to meet the expectations of the members could proveto be the Achilles Heel of Blair’s government, if members feel the partyhas moved away from addressing their concerns to focus on a differentgroup of voters. In the case of the Conservatives, the retention ofpolicies that are popular with members but less relevant to the floatingvoters in 2001 meant the party was unable to make a dent on Labour’sparliamentary majority. Leadership changes designed to provide theparty with potential electoral dividends consistently failed to have anyeffect on public perceptions of the party, leading to Iain Duncan Smith’sreplacement by Michael Howard, who again was more the party choicethan that of the electorate. The party has thus retained its identity andbase, which remains active. Neither party, therefore, has been able tocomplete the tasks of implementing a political marketing strategy in away that is able to satisfy key voter groups as well as loyal voters andmembers. In the case of the Conservatives, this has contributed to elect-oral failure, while for Labour, a professionally marketed electoralmachine is losing the party popularity among its base.

The dangers of political marketing: the case of New Labour The battle between internal and external opinion, if divergent, is aproblem for a party that wishes to develop a series of policies withbroad electoral appeal. ‘New’ Labour’s strategy was to sell changes tothe party’s image and programme to the membership with promises ofvictory. Whilst Labour delivered on this promise, once the sheen of theelection victory had worn off, many members became disillusioned withthe party’s record in office. Research in 2001 and 2003 among partymembers and loyalists within a safe Labour constituency tells a story ofdisconnection: a party and its activist base separated by strategy. A dis-cussion of Labour’s problems will demonstrate the dangers of adoptinga marketing philosophy that focuses purely on the floating voter.Research into Labour members’ attitudes focused on three areas: theiropinions of ‘New’ Labour and who the party represented; how theseopinions could be explained; and whether they felt that they shouldhave influence over the party’s political direction.

Arguably, these people are of great importance to the Labour Party,not primarily as workers during election campaigns or as advocates ofthe party, since such activities are not particularly important in safeseats, but rather as an indication of broader erosion of the party’s base.While it is recognised that party loyalty and alignment are diminishing,there are still voters who identify strongly with one party. The BritishElection Study, undertaken prior to the 2001 General Election, found


Labour had the strongest level of identification. This is unsurprisinggiven the political context of that particular electoral contest. However,looking at those who identify strongly as Labour there is a clear linkwith perceptions of social class and economic status. Those who self-reported being working class, and who would fit into the C2 and Ddemographic classifications, are 62% more likely to be loyal Labourvoters. In 2001 there was a further notable statistic: of the strongLabour identifiers, 32.5% of the overall sample, 44.7% declared theirintention to abstain from voting. Data does not state which types ofseats these respondents lived in, although it is likely that these voterspredominate in safe Labour strongholds. It seems that such respondentsare unsure of what the Blair-led party stands for, and have perhapstemporarily disengaged from the party. If this is a phenomenon associ-ated with the political and electoral strategy of ‘New’ Labour, and itsadoption of political marketing, it could indicate severe problems withthe argument that such a strategy has long-term electoral dividends.

While few Labour Party members in the focus groups expressed anyunderstanding of the concept of political marketing, their perception ofthe changes that had taken place during the mid 1990s are contiguouswith the adoption of a marketing orientation. In other words membersfelt that they had been left behind by the party and that Labour nowfocused on a new group of voters. Some participants found this difficultto articulate, describing the party as talking a ‘different language’,‘looking different’ at the national level or ‘not being like it used to be’.When asked how or why the party had changed some participantscould not offer answers, although one longstanding member contextu-alised the change in the terms of reform of the symbolic clause IV:

That’s socialism that is . . . taking that away meant the party didn’t believe innothing anymore. That’s the real change, its like cutting off your roots, that’swhat they’ve done.

Others took a more measured view, arguing that such rhetorical state-ments of principle did not fundamentally matter. These participants,and particularly female members, argued it was the policies that mat-tered. They argued that the party had appeared to be keen to help thepeople that the Conservatives had left behind; however, the first thingthey did was attack those on benefits. This was read as an attack onLabour’s heartland, those people one participant described as ‘the vic-tims of Thatcher’s pit closures and the destruction of the industry’. Itwas these people that expected great things of a Labour government.Those who took part in the focus groups said they felt that Labourcared no more for the less well off than would a Conservative govern-ment. One participant captured this attitude well when she argued that‘Labour is not for the people like us anymore, we don’t have a party’.Tellingly, and perhaps capturing the mood among many of the partici-pants in the research, one member presented his argument in terms of


belief rather than symbolism. He argued that the local party was thesame, the MP espoused familiar values, but this member no longer rec-ognised Tony Blair as ‘Labour’: ‘the party is not about red roses, redflags, calling each other comrade or any of that bullshit; it’s about theworkers and looking after people like me. I think Blair is just for peoplelike him and he is nothing like me’.

If not themselves then who is it that these loyal voters perceive theparty to be representing? While possibly indicative of a perceivedNorth–South divide, the consensus of opinion centred on the suburban-ites of the London region. Some participants argued that Blair repre-sented ‘big-city types who work the stock market’, ‘the professionallawyers that help themselves to whatever they want’, or the ‘rich’,‘wealthy business folk in the South.’ Many talked about ‘Tony’s cro-nies’ repeating a popular left-wing tabloid critique of the party, or theyused ‘the city’ as a catch-all term; but largely participants were ill-informed about who it was they felt Labour represented—just ‘notthem’. However, one group was dominated by a member who hadtaken part in Labour’s campaign in 1997. She was able to offer a differ-ent perspective of the party that was highly negative and reflective ofthe party’s strategy:

We were taken by minibus to the private estates, given loads of leaflets and toldto deliver them. The driver was from the local party but there was also a youngbloke from London. We did this Tory area that Blair won. But we were toldthese are the voters the party needs, but don’t talk to them just deliver the leaf-lets; if we talked to them they said we would put them off.

The discussion that followed this description of the strategy resulted inthe portrait of an average ‘New’ Labour voter. This was of an affluentindividual, with a mortgage, in a double wage-earning family, whocould afford to ‘go private’ for health care, had private pensions, a com-pany car and, importantly, ‘security’. Following the creation of this‘straw voter’, the participants argued it was little wonder that the partyno longer ‘stood for them’.

The participants in later groups, when introduced to this hypotheticalvoter, recognised this as the sort of person that the party was courting.They equally recognised that these voters were seeking different thingsfrom the party than them; as one participant argued: ‘Well these sortsof people won’t want tax rises will they; they’re just out for themselves’.There were a number of similar comments suggesting that, not only didthe members feel a dislocation from the party; but also from the typesof voter they feel the party is now targeting. The participants felt thiswas demonstrated in the lack of attention paid to their constituency, afeeling nicely encapsulated by one with the question ‘what bloody MP?’They equally argued they were paid little respect by the party, despitetheir long-time membership and loyalty, and were never approached in2001 for their vote: out of 82 participants, 40 declared that they had


not voted (35 of whom claimed this was the first time they hadabstained since they turned eighteen). The act of not voting, and it wasdescribed in terms of an action, was argued to be a message, a reactionto the lack of campaign as well as the perception that none of theparties offered a societal view shared by these voters.

All this could simply be the complaints of those who hark back to anon-existent golden era when the Labour party was socialist. While thatmay be the case, and these individuals may well be deemed unrepre-sentative, similar sentiments can be found elsewhere. A feature articlein the Daily Telegraph (7.2.05) quoted a number of 18–25 year oldswith attitudes that echoed the comments of the Labour loyalists. One20-year-old Oxford University student asserted that, ‘The Labour Partyused to be about serving the interests of the most vulnerable in society,it no longer does that; it looks after businesses . . . it doesn’t seem tomatter whom you vote for anymore’. This statement suggests that polit-ical marketing has led to a devaluation of the Labour brand, that inredefining the party’s values—what one participant called ‘making theirvalues a bit vague so they don’t mean anything’—the party is perceivedto have lost its ideological anchor.

Conservative members appear to see the reverse as the case; whilethey may not be attractive to the broader electorate, their core valuesremain. As one local association member commented:

The mood will turn, Labour will make a mistake and we’ll rise again, our val-ues will be seen as right for the nation . . . as Blair stole them anyway the peoplewill start to recognise that we are the right people to run the country as weactually have beliefs.

Conservatives argue that any threat to the party’s core would be heavilyresisted, independent of the desire for election. When discussing the factthat the party is ‘about electoral success’, and that their values may beoutdated, one association chair stated ‘I don’t care . . . if we had one MPwe would still stick to our guns’. Contrast this with the comments of alocal Labour Party chairman who, when looking back at the reforms ofthe 1990s, argued ‘we were blinded by the need to get elected, weagreed to Blair and all he stood for . . . four years later we were saying itshould be him not Hague with Thatcher’s hairdo on his head’.

But what does this have to do with a lack of democracy? Clear refer-ences were made to a lack of consultation with the members, somethingthat is seen as a shift in behaviour by the Labour Party. Those in theparty hierarchy locally argued they had given up any power to ‘themwho said they knew best’, to ‘Blair and his cronies’ or ‘to the marketingbods that sold the party out’. However, these arguments are based onlittle substantive evidence, more a perception among many membersthat they used to have some level of influence in the party which hassince been eroded. Some presented personal reflections that emphasisedthe difference in party-member relations. The longest serving Labour


member informed his group that he recalled having input into thedebates during the Gaitskell era and voted against adopting unilateralnuclear disarmament in the 1980s; that he was out-voted was immate-rial. However, attending conferences in the late 1990s, he found thatthe important issues were not even tabled: ‘They do just what theywant, Blair does what his cronies tell him, he doesn’t give a [damn]what people like me think.’ They feel they have no way of making theirvoice heard within the party, despite the introduction of one memberone vote at conferences, and that if they do vent their opinion no onelistens. Hence their only recourse is to withdraw their active support.

Members and loyal voters feel they awarded their party leader withthe mandate for power. One member of the Labour Party argued ‘Blairwas given his power by the members before the voters . . . but he’s notusing it right’. They equally recall that the local party meetings coulddiscuss important policy decisions; that the meetings were ‘genuinelyexciting’ and ‘we made decisions’. One member remembered a policydocument on nationalisation being circulated among those associationsthat would be most affected; some of it explained the economic circum-stances, but it also asked for comments and alternatives. In other wordsthey felt that they had an input whether this was real or not. They nowexperience a different kind of communication, when it happens at all:‘every so often, often near an election, we get this stuff saying “aren’twe great” or “haven’t we done all these good things”, no one reads itbecause we don’t see it making our lives better’. The fact that they seeeverything focused at them as being promotional while at the same timelargely irrelevant seems the root cause of the disengagement. They feelthey are disadvantaged in society, and now within the party: ‘they askthe rich what they want and give it them and do [very little] for folklike us’.

This is not the picture in every constituency, but it is indicative of theLabour heartlands. The loyalists talk as representatives of a part ofsociety that feels left behind by Thatcherism, but feels that it is alsoignored under Blair’s Labour premiership. They are still loyal to the‘idea’ of Labour and perhaps ‘Labourism’, but they see their role as toreform the party and steer it towards a more traditional political trajec-tory. Some articulated this in terms of ‘helping the little people’, being‘for the workers’ or ‘the working class party’ or ‘the trade unions’party’; others talked openly of ‘socialism’, although in practical ratherthan ideological terms. Fundamentally, they argued, Labour shouldensure that society is made more equal, and that party members couldhelp them to decide how to achieve this ‘even without upsetting thosewho won’t pay more tax’. However, they feel they are never consultedand are therefore disenfranchised. Conferences were described as‘scripted pantomimes . . . like a department store window, all flashy suitswithout price tags’; ‘the members aren’t asked to vote on anythingserious’ so ‘why should we do anything for the party?’ Many Labour


constituency parties appear to have become deactivated, in contrast toConservative and Liberal Democrat members who appear keen to beactive.

The future: mass parties or cadres? Since the focus groups were conducted, in 2001 and 2003, a number ofinitiatives have been undertaken by Labour aimed at engaging its mem-bers and the wider public. However, one academic study has suggestedthat such exercises have been more about public relations than genuineconsultation.5 Therefore, it is still argued that the Labour Party underBlair is disconnected from its loyal supporters and members, a chasmfurther widened by the effect of the Iraq war. Focus groups held in early2003, when fears of war were very real, showed that the greatest con-cern among Labour voters was the effect that the war would have onthem personally. Questions such as ‘will it affect the economy by rais-ing oil prices?’ or ‘will it increase the chances of a terror attack in theUK?’ predominated. The reason for this individualistic emphasis is thelevel of insecurity among those voters who fear redundancy or lay-offs,many of whom work through employment agencies and so can be dis-missed with little notice, and so for whom economic problems are themost serious. While a few did argue war was normatively wrong for aLabour government, and supported the Tony Benn or George Gallowayline, these were by far the minority. More broadly, one can imagine thatmuch dissent would have disappeared once troops entered Iraq, in linewith broader public opinion, and criticisms may well be forgotten asthe feared negative consequences failed to materialise; though this maynot be true for the Muslim community, which abandoned Labour in theLeicester South and Brent North by-elections.

Some in the media argue that a number of sops have been offered toLabour’s heartlands in recent times. The main political move was theincrease in the minimum wage, though one contributor with unknownpolitical affiliation argued on a political web-log that this made ‘thosein temporary employment at more risk of losing their jobs anyway’.However few commentators argue that Labour is making any realreconnection with its roots in a meaningful way. One prospective par-liamentary candidate argued that the party ‘had to show they weredoing the best for all elements of society, our pledge card reflects thatvision’. This may not be sufficient, however, for the core Labour voters.The six pledges for the 2005 election focused on five issues: living stan-dards; education; support for parents during the early stages of a child’slife; law and order and immigration. The first perhaps serves a new typeof Labour member. A local Labour constituency party chairman arguedthere are two types of Labour member; old, traditional Labourites anda new more affluent type. The former are the activists, the foot soldiers,but the latter contribute funds whilst showing little enthusiasm forpolitical involvement. The problem is that the latter group prevail in the


marginal seats, thus nothing will be done to upset this group. Whenasked about the former group, the chairman argued: ‘we are still abouthelping those people, we just have to do it in different ways, withoutthe heavy taxation, we have to be more cautious and help them in a dif-ferent political atmosphere, they have to understand that’. The problemis that many members do not.6

The Conservative Party, meanwhile, is said to have shifted away froma purely member-oriented political strategy. Nevertheless, its primecampaign message in 2005—‘Are you thinking what we are think-ing?’—is said to be based around issues raised within the party by its‘ordinary members’. The underlying assumption for this is that Con-servative members are representative of ‘ordinary’ people in society,and this may not be far from the truth in 2005. Patrick Wintour, writ-ing in the Guardian (25.2.05), indicates that the Conservatives’ tradi-tional policies have become salient with the voters and, as somemembers hoped, trust and support for the party is rising. Tellingly,there is little indication that they have gone through a process ofrebranding. In fact, unlike Labour’s Philip Gould, the Conservative’sconsultant, Lynton Crosby, seems to be telling the party to reinforce itscore values rather than reject them for some vague, watered down ver-sion. This itself is probably the result of reading public opinion. What-ever the marketing strategy it is one that will maintain coherenceinternally and should motivate activists to support the party’s efforts.

For the 2005 campaign, Toynbee warned the Labour party to focuson values, rather than appealing to the wallets of the median voter,arguing that big tent politics is unravelling (Guardian, 23.2.05). Simi-larly the Daily Telegraph survey showed that the young believe none ofthe parties are representative of their societal view—and that in practiceparties do ignore young voters since they are least likely to turnout. Thesame seems to be the case for the loyal Labour voters and their tradi-tional members: as they tend to live in safe seats it does not matter ifthey do not vote. This problem is created partially by marketing, but isalso the reason for parties’ application of marketing techniques and phi-losophies. Marketing attempts to identify the market that an organisa-tion requires to tap in order to achieve its goals: for all parties seekingto win power this is the disloyal, undecided or floating voters. Thisstrategy necessitates a reorientation of the party towards this type ofvoter and away from their core. Labour achieved this during the 1990swhen the membership acquiesced with reform of the party’s image andpolicies in the name of electoral victory, whilst expecting the product ofthat triumph to be more radical and socialist than proved to be the case.

The Conservative associations and members, in contrast, held on topower at the expense of short-term goals. Such a strategy may well payoff in the future. If Labour loses ground it will be forced either to returnto the heartland or to go onto a marketing offensive with the floatingvoter. Both strategies will be problematic: the former will lose the party


ground with the median voter; the latter could erode its base com-pletely. This is the issue at the core of discussions on the appropriate-ness of a marketing orientation for political parties. Should a partyretain a strong brand identity, independent of its popularity at any onepoint in the electoral cycle, and so allow its vote to rise and wane in linewith political fashion and the successes and failures of opponents? Thiscourse of action was followed by the Conservatives on the assumptionthat, as their values increase in salience, politics would move onto theirterritory and they would benefit in the polls.

The most contested statement in political marketing literature is thata market orientation is a necessary step for a party seeking electoralsuccess. While discussion can be had over the extent to which partiesare market oriented and whether the various models have been appliedfully and correctly, there are clear dangers for British parties attemptingto be market oriented. Perhaps the most important in the British con-text is the need for members to be active foot-soldiers during electioncampaigns: if parties fail to motivate their members then they will beinactive and campaigns will have a reduced impact: this is because ofthe reliance that must be placed on central office resources and tele-phone canvassing despite the importance of human contact on thedoorsteps. That is a problem Labour face: in courting a different type ofvoter they are alienating their traditional, established and most loyalsection. Could this indicate that internal democracy is needed to avoidsuch a problem and that as this is incompatible with the use of marketingthen parties should look to a more sales, rather than a market, orientedstrategy? Should parties just state ‘this is what we stand for, this is whatwe do, buy into it if you want’ and forget notions of appealing to themedian voter? These are questions that many parties, across numerouspolitical systems, must address. As parties face a crisis of membershipand allegiance, it is clear that political marketing is not the panacea.

1 Evidence for the importance of an active membership is presented in D. Denver, G. Hands, J. Fisher andI. MacAllister, ‘The Impact of Constituency Campaigning in the 2001 General Election’ in L. Bennie, C.Rallings, J. Tonge and P. Webb (eds), British Elections and Parties Review 12: The 2001 General Elec-tion, Frank Cass, 2002; C.J. Pattie and R.J. Johnston ‘Local Battles in a National Landslide: Constitu-ency Campaigning at the 2001 British General Election’, Political Geography, 2003.

2 B.I. Newman, The Marketing of the President: Political Marketing as Campaign Strategy, Sage, 1994;J. Lees-Marshment, Political Marketing and British Political Parties: The Party’s Just Begun, ManchesterUniversity Press, 2001.

3 Useful sources on the marketisation of the Labour Party are D. Wring, The Politics of Marketing theLabour Party, Palgrave, 2005; or for an insider’s view see P. Gould, The Unfinished Revolution: Howthe Modernisers Saved the Labour Party, Little, Brown and Co, 1998.

4 J. Knuckey and J. Lees-Marshment, ‘American Political Marketing: George W. Bush and the RepublicanParty’ in D. Lilleker and J. Lees-Marshment (eds), Political Marketing: A Comparative Perspective,Manchester University Press, 2005.

5 J. Lees-Marshment and D. Lilleker ‘Political Marketing in the UK: A Positive Start but an UncertainFuture’ in Lilleker and Lees-Marshment (eds), ibid.

6 For further evidence of the importance of the core voter see R. Mortimore ‘Digging Up Islwyn Man’23.3.05: http://www.mori.com/pubinfo/rmm/digging-up-islwyn-man.shtml.

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the impact of political marketing on internal party democracy by darren lilleker

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