While David Cameron reassures his party’s dwindling membership that he would never employ anyone who “sneered” at them, UKIP is attracting thousands of new recruits. A spokesman told me today that the party now has 27,517 members after gaining 2,000 this month and 6,000 since March. Once the backlog is cleared, it expects to have more than 30,000.
UKIP’s next target will be to exceed the membership of the Lib Dems, who were reported to have just 42,501 members at the end of 2012, a fall of 35 per cent since 2010 since 2010 and the lowest annual figure in the party’s 23-year history.
Content from our partners
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month