On August 17th the Tories, LibDems and Labour all had their party accounts published by the Electoral Commission – only the Tories didn’t include their membership figures. Labour’s were down 91,000 on the previous year and the LibDems are down 53,000 since Sir Ed Davey took over. Speculation about the Tories’ hordes has been rife, not least because we don’t know how many Brits have been eligible to vote in the leadership election.
While 160,000 eligible members is the understood ballpark, this afternoon Guido was told the true membership figure is now closer to 190,000, which is around 10,000 higher than the figures reported by then-party chairman Brandon Lewis ahead of the 2019 leadership election. CCHQ were at pains to emphasise the number of members eligible to vote in the leadership election is much closer to the already-reported 160,000, though the true figure is a decent number for Liz to build on…
