UK Conservative Party membership falls to just 100,000 people
Source: The Independent
The public’s disenchantment with Westminster is now so severe senior Conservative figures fear the party’s membership has fallen to 100,000 for the first time in modern politics – a fraction of its three million heyday.
The dramatic decline – similar to a haemorrhage in numbers of Labour and Liberal Democrat activists in recent years – prompted warnings that political leaders needed to adopt radically new ways of engaging with voters to avoid becoming obsolete in the internet age.
... Douglas Carswell, an MP pressing for fundamental overhaul of the party’s operation, said he would not be surprised if membership was now “south of 100,000”. Paul Goodman, the editor of the ConservativeHome website, said his “guesstimate” was that membership was between 100,000 and 130,000. Numbers are thought to have halved since David Cameron became leader.
... In the early 1950s three million Britons were paid-up Conservatives and the number remained over one million for much of the 1980s. When David Cameron became leader in 2005, membership stood at 258,000 and has fallen steadily since. A Tory spokesman refused to comment on its membership figures.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/british-politics-at-a-crossroads-disenchantment-with-westminster-sees-party-membership-plummet-8753054.html