http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-e-strafford/decline-and-fall-of-conservative-party
The
Decline and Fall of the Conservative Party
By
John
E. Strafford
When David
Cameron became Leader of the Conservative Party in 2005 there were 258,239
members of the Party. By the beginning
of 2010 membership had fallen to 177,000.
In the three years from 2010 to 2012 membership fell a further 44,000 to
133,000. My own constituency of
Beaconsfield has the second highest membership of any Constituency Association
in the country. Its membership in 2012
was 1,363. This year by 31st
May almost 25% of the members had not renewed their subscription to the
Party. On anecdotal evidence this is
fairly typical of most Associations.
This means that the total Party membership is now approximately 100,000,
so we have lost over 150,000 members since David Cameron became the Leader of
the Party. The loss of 150,000 is a net
loss after taking into account new members joining the Party. Assuming that the Party got say 5,000 new
members each year then the loss of members is 190,000.
Why has this happened?
What effect will it have and can anything be done to change this
disastrous trend?
Membership of the Party has been in long term
decline. At the end of World War II
membership was about 250,000. As a
result of the magnificent efforts of Lord Woolton membership had risen by 1952
to 2.8 million. Since then decline has
been continuous. By 1979 membership had
fallen to 1,350,000 and during the 1980s and 1990s it declined further to 400,000
by 1997.
The
Conservative Party suffered a major electoral defeat in the General Election of
1997. William Hague became Leader and
immediately set in train a reorganisation of the Party. At that time the Party did not even have a
constitution. Initially, he set out a
vision of a democratic Party. He spoke
of giving power to the members, but by the time his proposals were finalised
his vision had been watered down by the vested interests within the Party. The Parliamentary Party was determined to
retain its power and if possible increase it.
In the end the only concession the voluntary party got was a say in
future Leadership elections. The Party
got a constitution. We were now one Party,
but the voluntary part of the Party paid a heavy price.
Although the Party now had a constitution that constitution
cannot be changed without the agreement of an Electoral College consisting of
Members of Parliament and the National Convention, which consists mainly of
Constituency Chairmen. In this
Electoral College an MP’s vote is worth three times that of a Constituency
Chairman. The real power resides with
the Parliamentary Party. The Chairman
and Treasurer of the Party are appointed by the Leader, so are unaccountable to
the membership. There is no Annual
General Meeting of members, so there is no formal forum for members to raise
questions about the Party’s organisation or policies. The Annual Accounts of the Party are not
tabled for approval at an AGM. The
selection of parliamentary candidates of the Party is controlled
centrally. The Party Board can and does
take control of any Constituency Association, which does not toe the line. The infamous clause 17 of the constitution
states: “The Board shall have power to do
anything which in its opinion relates to the management and administration of
the Party”, and this makes the rest of the constitution meaningless.
What does a member get from membership of the
Conservative Party? Prior to the Party
reforms of 1998 there were a number of reasons to be a member. There were meetings at area and national
level where you could raise issues of policy or organisation. Social gatherings emphasised the tribal
feeling and sense of belonging. The
Party Conference was run by the voluntary party and it had motions for
debate. Votes were taken at the end of
the debates and although they were not binding they reflected the views of the
members. Constituency Associations were
for all intents and purposes autonomous.
The Party had three distinct sections - the parliamentary party, the
voluntary party and the professional organisation. There were checks and balances in the
distribution of power. All of these
were swept away in 1998.
Are there any longer reasons why one should be a member
of the Conservative Party?
The decline in membership matters. Of the approximately 100,000 Party members
10% or approximately 10,000 are activists.
Today those activists consist primarily of councillors, their families
and friends. With only 100,000 Party
members you can no longer fight a national campaign on the ground. As the Liberal Democrats have found, you
have to target particular seats and put all your resources into them. This is what the Conservative Party is doing
with its 40/40 campaign i.e. they are concentrating on fighting the 40 most marginal
seats held by the Conservative Party and the 40 most marginal seats held by
other parties. The problem with this
strategy is that it is based on the last General Election and things have
changed.
With the rise of UKIP we are now in an era of four party
politics so which seats are marginal?
In Aylesbury, a safe Conservative seat, UKIP picked up 32% of the votes
in the local elections in May. Does
that mean that Aylesbury can still be considered safe? Even if UKIP do not win any seats in the next
General Election but do take say 10% of the votes they will have a dramatic
effect on the Conservative Party. A
senior member of the Conservative Party forecast the possible loss of 100
seats.
Next year we have the elections for the European Parliament. There is a consensus of opinion that UKIP
are likely to have the highest vote of any of the political parties. At this point panic may well set in. Conservative
Associations throughout the country will feel vulnerable. Safe seats will no longer feel safe. Mutual aid will be abandoned. It will be every Association for itself.
By one of those moments of irony the next General
Election will be fought on an Electoral Register drawn up by individual
registration rather than household registration. When this was done in Northern Ireland 10%
of the Register disappeared. The origins
of political parties were as Registration Societies. Their main function was to ensure that their
supporters were all registered to vote.
This job will now be resurrected, except that there will not be the
Party activists to carry it out.
The most important factor in the next General Election
will be “feet on the ground” At the margin it is the canvassing and the
knocking up that will count most. For
that you need volunteers and the most committed volunteers are members.
For some years Conservative Central Office has ignored
the views of members. It has treated
them with contempt. This year, in order to increase attendance,
non-members have been invited the Party Conference, so what does Central Office
do – make it cheaper for a non-member to attend the Conference than for a
member. That illustrates the mindset of
the Party hierarchy. The appointment of
Jim Messina (former social media guru to President Obama) as an adviser is an
indication that they believe that the way forward is to organise our campaigns
as in the United States by gathering up supporters rather than relying on
members. What of course is forgotten is
that the Presidential Election in the United States costs approximately $6
Billion. Support is bought. Because of the financial restrictions on campaign
spending we cannot this.
So how do we set about increasing our membership?
It is no good re-launching the institutions that have
failed to prevent the decline in membership.
If they have failed before, they will fail again. What we need now is a radical approach based
on participation. I set out below some
of the measures that need to be taken:
·
The Conservative Party constitution should be
capable of being altered by the members of the Party on the basis of one
member, one vote, if 60%+ vote in favour of change.
·
There should be an Annual General Meeting of the
Party to which all members are invited.
·
The Chairman of the Party should be responsible
for the Party Organisation.
·
The Chairman and Treasurer of the Party should
be elected by the members of the Party.
·
The Chairman of the Party should present an
Annual Report on the Party organisation at the Annual General Meeting of the
Party for adoption by the members.
·
The Treasurer of the Party should present the
Annual Accounts of the Party to the Annual General Meeting for adoption by the
members.
·
The Chairman of the Committee on Candidates
should be elected by the members of the Party and should present a report on
candidate selection at the Annual General Meeting of the Party.
·
The Chairman of the Council of the Conservative
Policy Forum should be elected by the members of the Party and should present a
report on the workings of the Forum at the Annual General Meeting of the Party.
·
Motions for debate on policy should be allowed
at the Party Conference and votes taken on the motions.
·
Clause 17 of the current Party Constitution
which gives unqualified power to the Party Board should be deleted.
These
simple changes would give power to the members and provide a check on the power
of the Party hierarchy. Would they be
acceptable to Central Office? I doubt
it. All have been proposed before and
Central Office has ignored them, so what can be done?
There is a
nuclear option and that is to put down a motion of no confidence in the Leader
at a meeting of the National Convention.
It is inconceivable that the Leader could continue in office were such a
motion to be passed. The motion would
have to be supported by a sizeable number of Constituency Chairmen. Of course the Party Board would try to stop the
motion by saying it was not in the best interests of the Conservative
Party. Even if the motion was placed on
the Agenda the Officers of the Convention would try to move to next business
without it being debated, but if the numbers of supporters was sufficiently
high these tactics would fail.
Without
change the Conservative Party is heading towards a disaster. By the time of the next General Election it
will have ceased to exist as a membership organisation. It is sad for me as a Party member for the
last 50 years to have to point this out, but for the country it will be a
tragedy. The centre-right of politics has
a majority support of the people of the United Kingdom. In the Eastleigh by-election the
Conservatives and UKIP got 52% of the vote.
A collapse in the Conservative Party may mean that the Labour Party
takes office with all the implications that that would mean for the
country. However the Labour party, for
different reasons, is also facing a crisis on membership and could face similar
decline. These events have great
ramifications for democracy in our country.
The decline of parties will only be beneficial to those sources of private
power which want to escape the disciplines of political accountability.
What has
been lacking in the Conservative Party in recent years is a strategic approach
to winning. With the likelihood of a
hung parliament it was a mistake not to support the Alternative Vote. With second preference votes from UKIP it is
almost certain that a government would have been formed that was Centre Right
in outlook – a better proposition than a coalition with the Lib-Dems. By messing up House of Lords reform (which
was popular with the people) the Conservative Party lost support on boundary
changes which would have helped them to win more seats.
I
sometimes think that the Conservative Party has a death wish. Lack of historical knowledge, lack of
experience and lack of strategic thinking mean that the Party is slowly walking
into oblivion. This scenario can be
changed, but time is running out.
