Their Democracy & Ours: Truss wins Tory leadership on 47% of membership vote.Liz Truss has been elected as Tory leader and hence appointed as PM (on Tuesday) beating Rishi Sunak by 57% to C43% of the 141,000 votes cast. The turn-out was 82% (it was largely an e-ballot) meaning the Tory membership is currently 172,000.
The 80,000 votes Truss got was rather less than the 85,000 CWU members in the post who will strike again over a 2% pay offer later this week. That vote easily passed the 50% threshold of those entitled to vote which applies to trade unions but not elsewhere. Truss got 47% of the vote on this basis and were it a union ballot it would have been declared invalid as the TUC noted.
Membership of political parties is not high in the UK with the exception of Labour. Here membership rose to over 500,000 under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership but had declined somewhat to 432,000 at December 2021. It may well be lower still now but easily dwarfs Tory numbers still.
The SNP and Liberal Democrats are the next highest placed in terms of party membership.
However you look at it appointing a new Prime Minister where the vast majority of the electorate have no say and not even a majority of the winner’s own party back them does not confer a high degree of legitimacy
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