Former Tory leader William Hague changed the rules for Tory leadership elections in 1998 to provide for a members vote between two contenders determined by MPs. So far there have been three elections including the one announced today
2001: Iain Duncan Smith won with 155,993 votes (60.7%) against Kenneth Clarke who received 100,864 (39.3%) votes.
2005 David Cameron got 134,446 votes (67.6%) and David Davies received 64,398 votes (32.4%).
Neither Michael Howard or Theresa May required a membership vote as they ended up as the only candidate.
2019 Boris Johnson won with 92,153 votes (66%) to Jeremy Hunt’s 46,656 (44%)
The total votes cast were 138,809 representing 87.4% of the current Tory membership. In 2001 255,000 votes were cast
It is a party whose membership, despite an increase in the last year, appears to be in inexorable decline.
For comparison the Labour leadership election in 2016 saw a total of 506,438 votes cast with Jeremy Corbyn winning 313, 209 of them (thanks to Andrew Fisher on twitter for a reminder of the gap)
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