Tory party to lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience when MPs quit

The longest-serving Tory MP standing down is Bill Cash, who was first elected in 1984. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

The Conservative party will lose almost 1,000 years of Commons experience just from MPs who have already announced they are standing down, a Guardian analysis has shown, amid an exodus likely to be even greater than in 1997.

So far, 66 MPs elected as Conservatives in 2019 have announced they will not stand again – this includes four who have since lost the whip and sit as independents – which is close to one in five of the total.