The race to be the next Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party has been whittled down to two after Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt was eliminated from the contest. This leaves Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and former Chancellor Rishi Sunak as the final two MPs set to battle it out in the coming weeks.
Mr Sunak, the frontrunner throughout the parliamentary leg of the contest, received 137 votes in the final round of voting. Ms Truss won 113 votes, narrowly pushing Ms Mordaunt into third place on 105.
The remaining pair are set to go head-to-head in a live TV debate at 9pm on Monday, to be broadcast on BBC One. After more than a month of campaigning, the winner will be decided and a new Prime Minister expected to be announced on 5 September.
The winner of the contest will be decided by a vote amongst members of the Conservative Party. As of 2019, the party has 180,000 members, according to a social media post by then Party Chairman Brandon Lewis.
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There is no exact data for the current number of party members, as centralisation efforts on membership data have only got under way recently, and the party has chosen not to tell the Electoral Commission its exact membership figures. So roughly 180,000 Conservative Party members who will decide the next leader of the UK.
But how does one become a member and have their say on who becomes leader of the country?
Members of the public can join the Conservative party by signing up via the party website and paying an annual fee of £25 – or £2.09 per month – with discounts offered to members of the Armed Forces and those aged under 26. With this, members play an active role in the Party, are able to attend their annual conference, and receive voting rights in Party elections - but only after three months of membership.
That means if you joined today you would not be able to vote in the leadership election.
Prof Tim Bale, co-author of Footsoldiers: Political Party Membership In The 21st Century, said in the three years since Boris Johnson was elected leader, the make-up of Tory party members has remained largely the same. He said it is made up of more men than women with 40% over the age of 65, with around 95% of members identifying as white British.
The vast majority of members are classed as ‘ABC1s’, a social demographic made up of the ‘upper middle class’ who are better off and in higher-salaried jobs. Tory members are twice as likely to live in the south of England compared with the population of Britain as a whole.
When it comes to party members’ values, Prof Bale said they are not as keen as MPs on shrinking the state, cutting spending and reducing taxes. He said: “MPs are much more ‘conservative’ on the economy than members. The reverse is true when it comes to their social attitudes [but] when it comes to underlying social values, they tend to be quite socially conservative and more so than Tory MPs.”
Prof Bale said party members retain traditional conservative values, including wanting politicians to be tough on crime and immigration.
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