On Sunday, the Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis boastfully claimed that an unprecedented amount of young people had signed up to join his party in recent weeks, stating on the Andrew Marr show that he had seen “a big increase in our membership from young people” and that a “record number of young people” attended Tory Conference.
Lewis then doubled down on him claims, tweeting that more young people were joining the Conservative Party, and repeating the claim that a “record number of under-25s” came to the last week’s Tory conference in Birmingham.
https://twitter.com/BrandonLewis/status/1049266666759229441
However, in typical Tory fashion, it now appears that Brandon’s boastful claims were nothing but hot air.
When pressed by Channel Four News Fact Check to release the figures to prove his claims, the Conservative Party declined.
Channel Four Fact Check tweeted to say:
“Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis tweeted that more young people are joining the party and “a record number of under-25s” went to this year’s conference.
@FactCheck asked the Conservatives to show us the figures behind those claims. They declined.”
Conservative chairman Brandon Lewis tweeted that more young people are joining the party and “a record number of under-25s” went to this year’s conference. @FactCheck asked the Conservatives to show us the figures behind those claims. They declined.
— C4 News FactCheck (@FactCheck) October 11, 2018
Fact Check then went on to slam the Conservative Party’s ridiculous lack of transparency, stating that:
“The Conservatives have a history of publishing less information on membership than other major parties. They’re not legally obliged to tell us, but until they start being more transparent, we can’t @FactCheck this type of claim properly.”
The Conservatives have a history of publishing less information on membership than other major parties.
They’re not legally obliged to tell us, but until they start being more transparent, we can’t @FactCheck this type of claim properly.https://t.co/j6RXicflk5
— C4 News FactCheck (@FactCheck) October 11, 2018
Furthermore, in March, Brandon Lewis released figures claiming to show that amount of Conservative Party members was nearly twice the size that had been previously thought, at 124,000.
However, these figures were not supported by the Tory Party’s official accounts, which showed a massive decline in income from membership fees – dropping from £1,459,000 in 2016, to just £835,000 in 2017.
In fact, the party’s membership income was so low that in 2017 they actually received more money in wills from deceased benefactors than they did from living and breathing members.
The Conservative Party are clearly extremely worried about Labour’s youth appeal, and given how catastrophic the polling numbers are regarding support for the Tories amongst young people, it is becoming increasingly clear that, under the party’s current policy platform, they are presiding over a generational time bomb.
Just last month, a startling piece of data was unearthed which showed that if only 18-24 year olds were allowed to vote, the Tories wouldn’t gain a single seat in Parliament.
How the next general election would look if only 18-24s were allowed to vote (Data from @YouGov, 28-29th August). I'm expecting some great GIFs, everyone…
LAB: 66%, 600 Seats
LDM: 13%, 21 Seats
CON: 12%, 0 Seats
GRN: 4%, 1 Seat
SNP: 3%, 9 Seats
PLC: 0.4%, 1 Seat pic.twitter.com/CxaL1oBJ9u— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) September 4, 2018
Furthermore, it’s not just 18-24 year olds who appear to despise the Tories. The party would also be electorally obliterated by Labour if only people under 50 were allowed to vote.
The data shows that an absolutely monumental percentage of Tory voters are now over 50, with very little support from younger generations. It is a precedent that is clearly not sustainable, and despite Brandon Lewis’ desperate attempts to show they don’t have a problem, the party clearly know it:
So here's the completed picture:
Top Left: 18-24 – LAB 600, CON 0.
Top Right: 25-49 – LAB 407, CON 171.
Bottom Left: 50-64 – CON 354, LAB 215.
Bottom Right: 65+ – CON 575, LAB 32. pic.twitter.com/BaOYSSaQHN— Election Maps UK (@ElectionMapsUK) September 5, 2018
However, rather than actually devise policies which might benefit younger people, it seems that the likes of Brandon Lewis are more than happy to delude themselves by making claims that they’re completely unwilling to back up with evidence.
If they continue on their current path of completely ignoring the plight of younger people, the Conservative Party look increasingly likely to follow the direction of their core support: into the grave.
