Remainer Tory MPs’ go-to excuse when facing local members angry over flagrant betrayals of their manifesto commitments has been to dismiss it as “entryism”, despite there being no solid evidence for it whatsoever. It suits Remainer Tory MPs to blame Leave.EU rather than unhappy local members. Blame that Arron Banks gleefully accepts…

Instead of idle speculation, YouGov have done a rigorous study into Tory members, when they joined the party and why. While a large number of recent joiners did say it was because they wanted a vote in the leadership election, the vast majority were Tory supporters already before they actually joined the party. Leadership contests have always been good recruiting tools for pre-existing supporters who just haven’t bothered to join the party they back:

Whilst recent joiners are more likely to support Boris, even pre-2015 members still overwhelmingly prefer Boris to Hunt by 63% to 37%, so it’s largely immaterial to the final result. There’s simply no evidence that there’s been entryism on any significant scale – newer members may be more ‘Brexity’ but they are still overwhelmingly Tories. Brexit-blocking MPs have no excuse for not listening to the genuine concerns of hard-working local members any more…