Study title

This collection is comprised of data resulting from five internet surveys, conducted between 2015 and 2018. (1) A survey of 1193 Conservative Party Members, 1180 Labour Party Members, 730 Liberal Democrat Party Members, 802 United Kingdom Independence Party Members, 845 Green party Members, 968 Scottish National Party Members, conducted between 12th - 26th May 2015. It includes 347 variables relating to the political attitudes and activities, and demographic attributes of the respondents. (2) A survey of 5219 members of six British political parties (Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, Green, UKIP and SNP) run immediately after the general election of June 2017; contains 436 variables on political attitudes and social background. (3) A survey of the political attitudes and social background of 2026 members of the British Labour Party, run in May 2016. (4) A survey of 2249 members of the Labour and Conservative parties undertaken in December 2018 on their attitudes towards Brexit. (5) A survey of 6378 strong partisan identifiers of six main British political parties, undertaken in May-June 2015. 258 variables on political attitudes and social background. (6) A survey of the political attitudes and social profile of 1759 trade union members. 224 variables.Few, if any, fully-fledged democracies prosper without political parties. But parties are in trouble almost everywhere - both in terms of public perceptions, which are becoming more and more negative, and in terms of membership numbers, which (with the exception of some newer, more radical entrants into the market) dropped considerably from the 1950s. However, most of the main British parties experiences unexpected upturns in membership recruitment from during the period covered by this project. Unless we are willing to see parties become essentially elitist, hollowed-out institutions, this should give us cause for concern. In a healthy democracy, parties cannot simply be brands run by elites for their own and...