The Conservatives have said they prevented Arron Banks from joining the party, a few hours after Nigel Farage’s former financial backer, and a close associate, claimed they had successfully signed up.

A Conservative spokesman said membership applications from the Leave.EU co-founder and his business partner Andy Wigmore had been refused, at a time of growing concern that hard Brexiters were flocking to the party to vote in a future leadership contest.

Banks and Wigmore said they had received confirmation emails welcoming them to the party. However, the Conservatives said such emails were automated and applications were reviewed before they were finally accepted.

A Conservative spokesman added: “Arron Banks and Andrew Wigmore’s applications for membership of the Conservative party have not been approved.”



Earlier, Banks said he was joining the Tories because he believed a leadership battle was coming soon. “We believe that the battle for Brexit is now within the Conservative party,” he told the Westmonster website, which he founded.

Wigmore said he wanted to join the Conservatives “to ensure that if there is a leadership contest then I can influence the type of leader the country and the Tory party need”. He added: “We need a Brexit leader, one who believes in Brexit and will deliver what 17.4 million people voted for.”

Banks was Ukip’s principal financial backer under Farage’s leadership, providing millions in loans and donations in the run up to the 2016 referendum. Since then his finances and his meetings with the Russian officials in the UK have come under scrutiny. At one point he was invited to participate in a gold mining deal with the Russian ambassador, although Banks said he had declined to do so.

This week the Guardian revealed that a string of Conservative MPs were warning that there was a risk of entryism into the party as Banks’s Leave.EU group encouraged its supporters to join to vote for a “true Brexiteer” to be the next leader if Theresa May were ousted.



Conservative party rules mean anyone who has been a member for more than three months can vote in a leadership contest, choosing between two candidates selected by MPs.



A grassroots revolt against May’s Chequers proposal to ensure the UK shares a common rulebook for food and goods with the European Union after Brexit has fuelled the belief a leadership contest could happen soon.



Boris Johnson, who resigned over the Chequers proposal, is widely considered to be the most popular candidate among party members, although it is not certain that Conservative MPs would allow him to make the shortlist.

One of the MPs who voiced concern about hard Brexit entryism, the Remain supporting Anna Soubry, said she was relieved at the party’s decision on Banks. She said: “It’s clear there are people joining the Conservative party who are not Tories and are joining to remove Theresa May and replace her with a hard Brexiter and take the Conservative party to the other extreme of British politics, with Corbyn’s Labour on the other extreme.”

Before the applications were rejected Banks confidently tweeted that “three out of the four bad boys of Brexit” had become Conservative members – leaving “only Nigel Farage left”. However, the former Ukip leader has previously publicly dissociated himself from entryism.



BREAKING | Bad Boys of Brexit @Arron_Banks and @andywigmore join the Conservative Party.



🔵 Follow their lead by joining the Conservatives today and have your say in the leadership election: https://t.co/Vgc33bXJWnhttps://t.co/qOyjUAaFJm — Leave.EU (@LeaveEUOfficial) August 23, 2018

“I’m not advocating that people join the Conservative party, not under Mrs May, you must be joking,” Farage told radio station LBC. He added that he believed Ukip and the Referendum party before it had “exerted huge pressure, much more, than ever they could have done from within” over British politics by remaining outside the Conservatives.



Jacob Rees-Mogg, another prominent Brexiter who is considered a potential leadership candidate, disowned calls by Banks and his Leave.EU group to join the Conservatives.

“They’re not doing it in my name. Of course I want people to join the Conservative party, but I want them to join because they support a broad swath of values,” the MP said.

Party membership is at 124,000 according to the last set of figures released by officials, although it is understood to be rising.

William Hague, the party’s former leader, has also warned it would be dangerous to change the party’s rules to make it easier for an MP to get on the final ballot paper. The Campaign for Conservative Democracy (CCD), a small party campaign group, had said any candidate with the support of 20 MPs should be put before members.



“A small membership is then at risk at any time of being swamped by a sudden influx of new recruits – the very thing that happened in Labour in 2015,” Hague wrote in a Daily Telegraph column.

The Conservative party’s website says that the party “reserves the right to not accept a donation or application for membership”. It adds: “Application for membership of the Conservative party is subject to review by the party and its constituency associations before final approval.”