How should parties involve non-members? If the research above points to gaps that a registered supporters scheme could fill, other research from Kate Dommett points to what sort of supporters scheme may or may not work. A national survey into the public’s attitudes towards political parties found support for parties making it easier for people to get involved (45%-31%). As to what people should be able to do, the survey found support for involving those who are not party members in political discussion, campaigning and, to a lesser degree, selecting candidates and leaders – but not for setting party policy. People were asked who should be able to take part in these activities, with the options of saying that it should be anyone at all, only people who at least sign up in some way, people who at least register as a supporter, people who at least are a party member or that this task should only be done by party leaders. Grouping the first three together (allowing non-members in some form) against the last two (reserving the activity for members or only leaders), we find: 66% – 13% in favour of non-members taking part in political discussions and debate

67% – 12% in favour of non-members taking part in campaigning on specific issues

59% – 20% in favour of non-members taking part in election campaigning

44% – 35% in favour of non-members taking part in selecting party leaders, MPs and other representatives

34% – 45% against non-members taking part in making party policy A couple of caveats are worth adding. On policy-making, I suspect a question asking if parties should consult non-members before deciding on policy would have got a strong yes response. It is likely that this response is about the final formal decision making rather than all the steps which lead up to it. As for the selecting leaders and candidates question, because several options are bundled together this does not give a clear steer for the particular proposal being put to Liberal Democrat members at the moment. This all adds up to an apparently positive backdrop for the party reforms, but Kate Dommett cautions about the numbers in the survey who pick registered supporters specifically as their preferred option and that, “only 15% of people said theyâ€™d be interested in becoming a supporter in order to take part in a leadership election. More people (28%) felt selecting a leader should be up to party members.” To me, however, 15% is a large figure as, for example, 15% of the people who voted Liberal Democrat at the 2017 general election is just over 355,000. With party membership currently around 100,000 that looks a very decent sized number. Her research also looked at what activity people said they would not do and the answers to this suggest that people are only a little less likely not to become a registered supporter than not to become a member. That could be an important finding, but I think it is fair to say it comes with a big caveat – the other answers do not tally up with what happens. For example, people say they are less likely to donate to a party than they are to become a member, yet in practice the Liberal Democrats have more donors than members as members donate too by paying more than the minimum for their membership and giving money at other times too. Although the question looks a good solid one, there is something about it that doesn’t capture what we know about variations between different types of activity. In particular, there is the experience of de-facto supporters schemes that Liberal Democrat local parties have run, such as in Oxford West and Abingdon, where a significant number of extra people beyond the party membership have been engaged. Nor is that particularly new – in the 2005-2010 Parliament, I helped draw up the new activity targets for would-be target seats. This included have two non-member helpers (donors, poster sites etc.) for every one member. Her research, therefore, is a good caution that success is not guaranteed and millions are unlikely to sign up to a supporters scheme. It does though also point to ways in which the odds of success can be raised.