There have been numerous examples of when the government has changed its mind because of the large amount of public support behind a campaign. The Gurkha campaign in 2008 was backed by a huge section of society, the government were at first very reluctant to allow Gurkha’s to settle in the UK. Parliament rebelled against the government and passed a law which meant Gurkha’s could settle in the UK. The government, noticing how much public support was behind the campaign finally caved in and granted the campaign its wish.
A second example would be the success of the people’s fuel lobby, which in 2000 were campaigning for lower fuel taxes. They had such a huge public following and support and therefore can be seen as a big pressure group, some people argue this is the reason they were so successful
Many people argue that this campaign would not have been successful without the huge amount of public support and therefore size of the campaign.
Other groups which are powerful because of size can include RSPB, the consumers association and the NSPCC. They all have membership levels above 1 million. If the government were to disagree with these pressure groups it would have a large electoral impact.
However it is not always public support which makes a pressure group powerful, for example the anti war campaign was supported by huge numbers of people and was one of the biggest demonstrations in London for generations but was unsuccessful, because government had strong views on the issue. Some argue that government want to been seen to be on the side of big pressure groups but don’t always agree with them and act on their demands, this means the pressure group is not successful.
Many pressure groups rely on their members for donations, it is therefore essential to have a large number of members. More members can mean more money, which means more successful because they can run campaigns and employ professional lobbyists and also donate money to political parties. Groups such as WWF have used their large public support to ask for money so they can employ professional campaigners. Groups such as Greenpeace are only successful because of their large membership. Greenpeace relies so much on their membership because 90% of their total revenue comes from their members; they could not run any campaigns with out money.
However some would argue that money is such an essential aspect to being a successful pressure group that it is more important than every other aspect. Pressure groups don’t need a large membership to provide their income; they can rely on big individual donors. For example the CBI is a very successful pressure group, but has little members. The CBI is more powerful than the TUC even though the TUC has 7 million members where as the CBI represents only 200,000 business.
A pressure group with has lots of members has the ability to organise political campaigns and protests more successfully then pressure groups which don’t have a huge following. A protest by the Howard league for penal reform would be ineffective as they don’t have a large membership, where as if the TUC managed to convince all 7 million members to protest they would have much more success. Groups such as the TUC can also use their large following to threaten the government with strikes, which the government wants to avoid at all costs; where as a smaller group such as the CBI can not.
However size is not always the game changer, other aspects come into it as well. As I explained earlier the CBI is more powerful then the TUC even though the CBI is so much smaller in terms of size. In this example it is because of economic wealth. One other way a pressure group can be successful is policy expertise, the Howard league for penal reform only has 3000 members but is successful because of expertise.
Liberty may not have as many members as the TUC but in some ways it is as successful, this is down to good organisation and leadership. A pressure group can have a huge number of members but if they can not mobilize them to be effective then they will not be successful, the student movement against the rise in tuition fees had public support but was not organised very well so was not successful. If a party has the view of the government behind them they will be far more successful, big or small. For example the ramblers association were far more successful when the labour party were elected in 1997 because the labour party was sympathetic to their cause. The density of members of a pressure group is very important as well, for example the BMA represent 80% of doctors so are very influential with health policy.
Size helps in making a pressure group successful but unless the other factors such as wealth, organisation and government views are in their favour a pressure group can struggle.