The Advantages of being a small Political Party. (Part 2)

 Prices Law (see last post) is a nightmare for large political parties.

But it doesn’t necessarily apply as-is to smaller parties. So being a smaller party is not all bad. Also being small can give you some tactical advantages over the well resourced, well financed, larger legacy party opposition.

So what’s the difference? Why doesn’t Price’s Law apply to small political set-ups like it does to large parties?

One of the main reasons is a member of a smaller party like (say) the SDP has more skin in the game than a member of (say) the Labour Party.

Being a member a small party requires far more personal commitment than to a large party. You are “out on a limb”. What you are doing is unusual. Instead of following the crowd you are breaking away from the pack. You have stepped away from the comfort of a crowd. Consequently to do this you are far more likely to have embarked on this course specifically to action some form of change.

Whereas a Labour party member is in a huge cosy club where they don’t have to do anything and nobody bothers them. In fact the bureaucracy and tiered elitism actively discourages it.

They can remain anonymous in their comfort zone yet gain all the personal kudos of “doing something”. Whereas in fact they’re just drinking cheap beer down the Labour club.

For a small party this personal commitment gives the leadership the opportunity of engaging with the membership on a much more dynamic level.

Most people in political parties both large and small, join to try and make a difference. But very few (especially in the large legacy parties) are given any significant opportunity to do so.

But in all parties whatever their size have a problem. While members join and want to affect change they literally have no idea what to do to affect that change. Or help it along it’s way.

In essence they mean well. But they don’t know what to do to affect that change. Consequently most end up being paper members. This is inevitable in a large bureaucratic party like the Labour Party but can be ameliorated in a small party.

A smaller party has much greater opportunity to involve it’s membership in policy making and actioning of party goals and aims. Consequently it obeys what is known as The 90-9-1 Law.

With 90-9-1 Law, in a party of 3500 members, approximately 35 are the real heavy lifters, another 315 contribute to varying degrees and the final 3150 are passive.

BUT this law can be tweaked.

There is far, far less bureaucracy and a “who you know” mentality in a small party. If it structures some activities to accommodate occasional participation, it can allow members to dip in and out without demanding long term commitment to any one target/activity.

Everybody hates open ended commitments. So if a small party avoids these where possible, people will be more willing to contribute. The 90-9-1 spread of participation can become more like 80-16-4 but only if contribution is made easier and more worthwhile.

A large party has many more tiers. The average novice member is far more isolated and remote from those guiding the party. They are anonymous. The structure and hierarchy is complex, bureaucratic, confusing and intimidating. There is far, far less potential to get novice members to engage than in a small party. There is little to no leeway in modifying the depressing stricture of Prices law.

A small party is therefore already at an advantage. But in engaging party members in small clearly defined activities a small party can break out from the 90-9-1 Law and so multiply it’s effectiveness. All by simply involving it’s membership in clearly defined, straight forward tasks that have a clear beginning and end.

It just needs to figure out what these tasks need to be.

As you’ve probably guessed there’ll be more on exactly what these tasks are in another post coming in the next week or so.

Bye for now

Love & Kisses

Billo.