Tories Have Allegedly Lost 8,000 Party Members Since Kemi Badenoch Took Over

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch thinks the Tories are more right-wing than Reform UK.The Tories have lost around 8,000 party members since Kemi Badenoch was elected as Conservative leader, according to reports.The figures, revealed by The Spectator’s Tim Shipman, will spark wider fears that the party is not only failing to pick itself up after its historic defeat at last year’s general election, but that it is now on a downward slope.During the 2024 leadership election, the Tories had 131,000 members. That has reportedly now fallen to 123,000.Reform, which calls itself the UK’s “fastest growing political movement”, says it has 309,000.The Conservatives have been approached for comment on the claim.The stats come on top of growing fears around Badenoch’s leadership.According to a brutal long-read in The New Statesman, she is struggling in her everyday role as leader of the opposition and at the helm of the Tory Party.The Tories have also consistently been in third place in the opinion polls since 2025 began, and currently languish on just 17%.Reform UK, their main right-wing rivals, are leaping ahead on 28% while Labour sit in between them at 22%.The Spectator’s findings will also add insult to injury after Badenoch accused Nigel Farage of inflating his party’s membership numbers last Boxing Day.He claimed on social media that Reform had surpassed the Tories in membership, prompting Badenoch to claim his online membership tracker is “not real”.But evidence widely suggested the tracker was accurate after all.Former Tory MPs have also defected to Reform in recent months, including former party chair Sir Jake Berry.The party lost more than 650 seats and control over all of its councils in May’s humiliating local elections, too.But Badenoch has had a curious approach to tackling Reform. Speaking to the Financial Times, she accused the party of “stealing everyone’s oxygen” – and then spent a fair amount of her interview talking about them.She said she hoped voters would eventually see Reform as more left-wing than the Tories with their promise to bring back nationalisation and lift the two-child cap.Badenoch added that the public would soon tire of Farage’s “bullshitting”.She also slammed Farage’s popular TikTok channel, saying: “Time is the factor. If you’re not doing anything else, you can do TikTok morning, noon and night.”Reform, meanwhile, seems to have its eyes on a bigger prize than fighting with the Tories.On its website, it claims: “At 309,000 [members] we will overtake Labour’s membership and become the largest political party in the UK.”Related...Is That It? Kemi Badenoch Accused Of 'Deckchair Shuffling' After Frontbench Shake-UpKemi Badenoch Brands Nigel Farage 'A Bulls*****r' In Foul-Mouthed Rant'He Needs An Education!' Kemi Badenoch Clashes With Labour MPs Over Welfare Reforms

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