Labour is losing a member every 20 minutes and will have none left within seven years if that rate continues, according to one of the candidates for the party’s deputy leadership.

Jon Cruddas, the MP for Dagenham, said the party had lost more than 160,000 members between 2000 and 2006.

If it continued in the same way, the last member of the party would leave in April 2013, around the end of a fourth term for Labour under its new leadership if it wins the next general election.

Labour’s membership peaked at 405,000 after Tony Blair came to power in 1997. The most recent official estimates show it had fallen to 198,025 by the end of last year, but MPs say it is likely to have fallen further since then.

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