“I have to say, we have been working very hard over the past year to increase our membership.”
When asked for it, the three MPs presented none. The reason is simple: this supposedly sinister entryist army does not exist.
Dagenham and Rainham, Bury South, Cardiff North and Bassetlaw are among the new tranche seeking a Conservative candidate.
The next leader must be someone able to woo the unconverted and broaden the Tory tent. As Mayor, he was that candidate. But is he still?
His association executive is expected to demand tonight that he makes his intentions clear. But the constitution allows him to simply refuse to answer.
The latest email to local members confirms ConservativeHome’s recent report.
Our party will not be able to speak for Britain as it really is, and as it will increasingly come to be, unless we make some efforts to reflect this in our membership.
He would have the right to a full ballot of the local membership. But an already strained local relationship, combined with Brexit, makes it an uphill struggle.
Philip Sagar warns that it “has already reignited the calls for [the MP’s] deselection from party members” and could amount to “an act of personal political suicide”.
Also including: Twickenham, Battersea, Croydon Central, Kingston and Surbiton, and Dewsbury.
And No Deal is now activists’ most favoured option of all. Views are hardening as the endgame looms into sight.
Many Conservative Associations will not even take receipt of the boxes. And CCHQ will not say how much money it has spent on the campaign.
The unique nature of divisions over it could overwhelm the Party’s traditional pragmatic instinct for office.