buried in the Electoral Commission figures is fact that Tory party's income from membership has slumped from £1.46m to £835,000 in a year, for some reason.....compares to Labour getting £16m from membership subscriptions, up from £14m the previous year
so has Tory party membership fallen by 43 per cent in 12 months? "I can't give you an answer to that right now," says press office.
Tory chairman Brandon Lewis boasted in March that membership was "going up literally day by day" and had passed 124,000, contrary to rumours. Do these new figures imply the party is virtually (or literally) giving membership away? express.co.uk/news/politics/…
some more context: Labour's £16m from membership subscriptions last year is up from £6m in 2014
so going back through earlier annual reports, turns out that £7-900k is pretty normal for Tory subscription income, question is why 2016 was a freakishly high figure (£1.46m)
another priceless fact is that the Tories received more from dead people (£1.7m in "legacies") than live members
another interesting fact: Lib Dem membership income jumped from £971,519 to £1.28m, easily overtaking the Tories
so...Tory drop in subscription income reflects spike in people joining centrally in 2016 rather than via associations. (Membership is £25, of which HQ takes £5). So in 2017 party had to cough up to associations: that was offset vs its broader membership income figure for the year
