by Oliver JJ Lane, Breitbart:
Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party has now overtaken the UK’s traditional party of government, the Conservatives, in membership, crossing the historic threshold weeks sooner than expected.
The most recent public figures for paid-up full members of the Conservative Party, certainly the oldest political party in the United Kingdom and possibly the oldest political party in the world, put it at 131,680 in November. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK — which he calls the youngest party in Britain — overtook that figure late Thursday morning following a Christmas Day surge in sign-ups.
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At the time of publication the figure continued to rise and has made it to 132,200 members.
Brexit leader Farage, who came back to lead the party earlier this year after another failed attempt to step away from front-line politics and who got a seat in Britain’s Parliament for the first time on its ticket in July said: “This is an historic moment.”
He said of overtaking the Conservative Party: “The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world. Reform UK are now the real opposition.”
The countdown to Reform surpassing the Conservatives in the number of people they can convince to surrender their hard-earned money to support a political party was announced earlier this week, and a live-ticker of the party membership was broadcast. As stated then, it seemed likely the crossover would come early in the new year, with the advanced time scale suggesting yet another surge in signups.
As reported then:
British bookmakers say Mr Farage is the favorite to be the next Prime Minister.
Certainly, Reform UK is the fastest-growing UK political party. It has 30,000 members in early June, rising to 100,000 by late November, little less than a month ago. While the vast majority of members have paid £25 each to the party, last week Mr Farage launched a special for young voters, welcoming under-25s with a special £10 deal.
That saw a fresh surge of sign-ups, with 1,000 new members in just 48 hours by Saturday. The party had climbed to 118,000 members by Sunday and today the live tracker proclaims 121,096 members at time of publication.
While much focus is placed on the rivalry between the Conservatives, long the default party of British government — it has been in power in 70 of the past 100 years — and Reform, perhaps a more important point in the coming years is it taking voters from left-wing Labour, too.
