Huge decline in Tory membership under Cameron
The Conservative party has lost a third of its members since David Cameron took over, a new report has revealed.
In findings which will encourage those on the right of the party, the House of Commons library found membership had dropped from 258,000 to 177,000 since 2005, when Cameron took over.
Labour membership has fallen by 4,000 to 194,000 during the same period.
The reduction means Labour now has more members than the Tories, although the draining off of members is not at the level of Labour under Tony Blair, when right-wing policies and the Iraq war drove many away from the party.
The figures show none of the three parties have anything to feel smug about. Just 1.1% of the electorate is now a member of a political party.
That is down from 3.8% during the Thatcher-Foot era and ten per cent in the Wilson-Heath era.
The presence of a mass media, the scrapping of membership voting on policy and the increasingly centrist position of Labour and the Tories are all cited as possible causes for the decline.
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- conservative leadership
