MANCHESTER—In a plea for a revival of the Conservative Party, prominent Tory peer Lord Hannan has sounded the alarm bells ahead of a potential general election, pointing to a stark decline in party membership and a fragile leadership selection process.
Lord Hannan highlighted the Tory party’s significant decline in membership, emphasising the need for expansion and democratic inclusion.
Speaking on Monday to The Epoch Times at an event hosted by the Bruges Group, Lord Hannan said: “The real problem here is that we have a much dwindled base of members. We don’t have anything like the mass organisation that we had a couple of decades ago. In fact, it was when I was first selected as an NDP [National Democratic Party] candidate in the late ‘90s. I think we had 125,000 members in the southeast. I’m not sure we have 125,000 members nationally now.”
Drawing inspiration from a recent trip to Canada, Lord Hannan commented on the Canadian Conservative Party’s successful model, where members actively shape policies. Speaking to the Tory party, he said, “I'd very much like to see a much bigger role for members in shaping policy.”
It comes after a former major donor and ally of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Lord Cruddas, called on donors to cease funding the party altogether until greater power is given back to the membership.
Lord Cruddas was speaking at the Conservative Democratic Organisation’s black-tie gala on Sunday in Manchester.
Criticising the party’s current leadership selection process, Lord Hannan proposed a thorough reevaluation post-election, involving the 1922 Committee and party board.
‘It’s Completely Unstable’
He said: “I was always against having this [current] system for precisely the reason that we can now see. It’s completely unstable that you can be elected as leader by the party membership without the support of your MPs.“And we need to find ways of fixing that. It happened to [former Conservative Party leader Sir] Iain Duncan Smith, it then effectively happened again, would have happened again, to Boris and then again to [former Prime Minister] Liz Truss.
“It’s not a stable way of running a party.”
Speaking to The Epoch Times on Monday on the issue of a dwindling membership, Sir Duncan Smith said, “Look at this conference, they’ve actually moved the main hall to a hall, which is smaller.”
Responding at an event hosted by the Centre for Brexit Policy, Sir Duncan Smith backed up Lord Hannan’s comments, saying, “Dan’s right about the fact that we have to find a way to engage them [the membership].”
Tory Leadership Process ‘A Problem’
On the issue of the Tory leadership process, Sir Duncan Smith added: “And also the leadership process, I think, is a problem. Going out to the membership and then deciding you don’t like it because they make the ‘wrong’ decisions, and therefore you’re going to have to get rid of them [the candidate].“That doesn’t make sense to me either. You know, either you believe in it, or you don’t believe in it, and we’ve gone into a halfway house.”
In his wider speech at the event, Lord Frost spoke on the necessity of convincing Conservative voters on the possibility of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer attempting to align more closely with the EU if Labour win at the next election.
He said: “I’m very concerned about what Labour would do if they were to win in 12 months time or whenever.
“Whatever they say, I could see they are keen to take us back in, at least economically, as quickly as they can and they seem quite happy to get there by one small agreement after another, salami slicing, making the case each time.
“So I guess as one of the architects of the Brexit we have, I’m extremely concerned and I do want to see us win the next election.”
