Conservative Party membership slumps

Party documents show 40,000 supporters have left since David Cameron took over as leader three years ago.The slump has ACCELERATED over the past year with the constituencies of Shadow Cabinet members among the worst hit.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has lost an incredible 240 members in the last three years. Osborne—rocked by the Yachtgate scandal over his alleged talks with a Russian billionaire about a possible party donation—lost 69 constituency members in the past year.

Also badly affected is Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague, whose constituency membership fell by 267 in just one year.Overall, Tory Party membership has fallen from 290,000 to 250,000 in the three years since Cameron took over.

The ageing membership is dying off and the party is failing to attract youngsters.
Yet Labour has managed to stabilise its membership decline. When Tony Blair won the 1997 election the total number of members stood at 405,000.

In the decade after that victory, membership halved, returning to the level it was before Blair took over.However, since Gordon Brown became PM last July the decline has halted and Labour has managed to entice 10,000 new members. Read the full story here