One consequence of the frequent changes of leadership of the Conservative Party is that it provides a regular update on the size of the Party. Political parties in the UK are not required to release data on the number of members and the Conservative Party has consistently refused to publish membership figures. The reasons for this are not entirely clear, but there are a number of possible explanations. It is possible, although unlikely, that accurate figures simply don’t exist. At various points political parties, including the Conservative Party, have been comprised of different organisations or branches with different kinds of membership. Individuals might join a local party branch or a national party, a youth wing or an affiliated organisation. Others have suggested that the Conservative Party may simply be too embarrassed to publish figures which indicate a declining membership. The Labour Party, in contrast, has published membership figures since 1928, and Liberal Democrat membership data can be found in the party’s annual accounts. In 2018, the Conservative Party Chairman, Grant Shapps urged the Party to be more transparent about its membership, even if the figures were embarrassing.
Despite this, the Conservative Party continues to refuse to publish membership figures, forcing observers to estimate the membership based in part on periodic comments made by party members. In recent years, for example, at least one authoritative source has relied on a 2021 Tweet by the Conservative Party Chairman, Brandon Lewis, expressing his delight that the party membership had reached 180,000.
Conservative leadership elections
While the Conservative Party has been somewhat cagey about its membership, the election of new party leaders has in recent years been conducted in the full glare of publicity. Conservative Party leaders are elected in a two-stage process. The first stage involves a series of votes amongst Conservative MPs in order to whittle a list of potential leaders down to two candidates. In the second stage, Conservative Party members in the country choose their preferred leader from the two remaining candidates. The new leader is announced by the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee, crucially along with voting figures from the poll of party members. The relatively frequent changes in Conservative leadership in recent years have therefore provided a useful and fairly regular update on the size of the party, with the notable caveat that not all party leaders have been required to go through both stages of the election process.
The first leader to be elected on a ballot of party members in the country was Iain Duncan Smith in 2001. Duncan Smith was replaced by Michael Howard in 2003, however as no other candidates were nominated, Howard took over without an election. The next leader to be elected by a poll of Party members was David Cameron in 2005. When Cameron stepped down after the EU referendum in 2016, Theresa May became leader without a vote amongst party members when the only other remaining nominee, Andrea Leadsom, withdrew from the contest after the second round of voting amongst Conservative MPs. In 2019, Boris Johnson defeated Jeremy Hunt in the ballot of party members. Following his resignation in 2022, Johnson was replaced by Liz Truss who was favoured by Party members over Rishi Sunak, but when Truss stepped down 45 days later, she was replaced by Sunak without an election when all of the other potential leaders withdrew their nominations. Kemi Badenoch, is the eighth Conservative leader since 2001, and the fifth to be elected in a ballot of Party members.
What do Conservative leadership contests tell us about the state of the Party?
The five ballots of Conservative Party members since 2001 provide an insight into the recent decline in Conservative Party membership. It is a depressing picture for the Party. The Conservative Party has lost almost 200,000 members since 2001, almost 60% of its membership. Moreover, that decline has continued almost unchecked during a period in which the Party has been in opposition, in government as part of a coalition, and also with a sizeable majority. The Party lost over 94,000 members in the (admittedly quite long) period between the election of David Cameron in 2005 and Boris Johnson in 2019. The number of eligible voters in the 2022 leadership contest indicated a slight rise in party membership, suggesting that Johnson was perhaps the only leader across this period capable of attracting new members. However, there has again been a marked fall in membership in recent years. In the two years between the election of Liz Truss and Kemi Badenoch, 40,757 members have left the party, almost a quarter of the party’s 2022 membership. If Conservative Party membership continues to decline at the same rate it has since 2001, the Party will effectively cease to exist before the middle of the century.
One possible crumb of comfort for Party managers is that there is some evidence of continued engagement amongst those members who remain. Average turnout across the five leadership elections is around 80% and peaked at 87.1% in 2019 with the election of Boris Johnson. However, turnout for the election of Kemi Badenoch was a long way below that 72.3%, and the lowest across all five of these leadership elections.
These leadership contests provide just a snapshot of the state of Conservative Party membership. It is also possible to argue that the moment at which a party changes leader is not when it is at its most popular. Nevertheless, there is clearly a long-term decline in membership, and this has real consequences. Political parties need members to stand for office and crucially to campaign. A decline in membership subscriptions will also lead parties to seek funding from alternative sources such as wealthy donors. This has wider implications for the health of our democracy. Political parties don’t have a right to exist and those which fail to attract support will eventually disappear. If the Conservative Party is to avoid this, it will need to rebuild, from the ground up.
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This post draws extensively on data from two House of Commons library research briefings on Leadership Elections: Conservative Party, by Neil Johnston and Membership of Political Parties in Great Britain, by Matthew Burton and Richard Tunnicliffe.