Insurance entrepreneur and Brexiteer Arron Banks has been formally blocked from joining Britain’s ruling Conservative party.
The former UK Independence party donor and close friend of UKIP MEP Nigel Farage applied for membership in an attempt to encourage hard-line Eurosceptic sentiments in the Tory party, according to The Financial Times.
Leave.EU, the Brexit campaign group launched by the insurance millionaire, called on its supporters earlier this week to join the Conservatives in order “to save Brexit.” Political analysts have described the Tory party as ripe for entryism, especially considering its membership numbers have dropped to around 124,000.
“It is likely that a Conservative Party leadership contest will be held in the next three to six months,” said an email from the Leave.EU group. “You will therefore have a hand in choosing our next Prime Minister - and in determining the kind of Brexit that Britain gets.”
Despite such public encouragement, and receiving an email saying he could attend Tory party events, Banks and his associate Andrew Wigmore’s attempts to join the party were denied, a Tory spokesman has confirmed. The party said the event invite was likely an automated message, sent out before the party’s approval process.
Under Conservative Party rules, local associations can refuse membership to anyone “whose declared opinions or conduct shall, in their judgement, be inconsistent with the objects or financial wellbeing of the Federation or be likely to bring the Party into disrepute.”
