{"id":202547,"date":"2024-12-26T14:21:04","date_gmt":"2024-12-26T14:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/26\/reform-uk-has-more-members-than-tories-nigel-farage-says\/"},"modified":"2024-12-26T14:21:04","modified_gmt":"2024-12-26T14:21:04","slug":"reform-uk-has-more-members-than-tories-nigel-farage-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/12\/26\/reform-uk-has-more-members-than-tories-nigel-farage-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform UK has more members than Tories, Nigel Farage says"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/0e3e\/live\/4fce22e0-c389-11ef-a4ac-91c171cf68e4.jpg?fit=1024,576&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Reform UK has more members than Tories, Nigel Farage says\" title=\"Reform UK has more members than Tories, Nigel Farage says\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Reform UK now has more members than the Conservative Party, its leader Nigel Farage has said.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">A digital tracker on Reform&#8217;s website shows its membership numbers have overtaken the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservatives earlier this year.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Nigel Farage thanked those who helped his party &#8220;make history&#8221; and said Reform is now the &#8220;real opposition&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">A Conservative party spokesperson said Reform UK had helped to deliver a Labour government. <!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div data-component=\"text-block\">\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Reacting to the growing tally on X, <!-- --><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Nigel_Farage\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">Farage said<!-- --><\/a>: &#8220;The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world.&#8221;<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Party chairman Zia Yusuf said Reform had broken the &#8220;centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics by the Tories&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Earlier this year, the Conservative Party said it had 131,680 members eligible to vote during its leadership contest to replace Rishi Sunak.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">It was the lowest recorded membership for the party and a considerable drop from the 2022 leadership contest, when it boasted around 172,000 members.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">A Conservative spokesman said Reform had &#8220;delivered a Labour government that has cruelly cut winter fuel winter payments for 10 million pensioners, put the future of family farming and food security at risk, and launched a devastating raid on jobs which will leave working people paying the price.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">&#8220;A vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council &#8211; only the Conservatives can stop this&#8221;, he added.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The BBC has contacted Labour for comment.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\"><a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/c33n6311577o\" class=\"sc-c9299ecf-0 bZUiKB\" rel=\"noopener\">Membership numbers to all main political parties fell last year<!-- --><\/a> despite gearing up for this summer&#8217;s General Election.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Although it still has the most members of any UK party, Labour saw its numbers dip below 400,000 for the first time since 2015.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">Comparing party membership numbers can be &#8220;difficult&#8221;, according to a research briefing published by the House of Commons Library, as there is no uniform definition of membership or way to monitor it.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">The director of think tank More in Common, Luke Tryl, told the PA news agency that the metric is &#8220;opaque and murky&#8221;.<!-- --><\/p>\n<p class=\"sc-eb7bd5f6-0 fYAfXe\">He said Reform UK have &#8220;momentum&#8221;, but indicated that it is not guaranteed whether its membership converts to campaigners.<!-- --><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cq62qv3486qo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reform UK now has more members than the Conservative Party, its leader Nigel Farage has said. A digital tracker on Reform&#8217;s website shows its membership numbers have overtaken the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservatives earlier this year. Nigel Farage thanked those who helped his party &#8220;make history&#8221; and said Reform is now the &#8220;real [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/0e3e\/live\/4fce22e0-c389-11ef-a4ac-91c171cf68e4.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[23751,18,20164,1793,3440],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202549,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202547\/revisions\/202549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}