Image copyright Christopher Furlong

Reports that 150,000 people have joined the Labour Party since the general election are not recognised by Jeremy Corbyn's office.

A collection of popular tweets have suggested that Labour's membership has bulged by 150,000 since the election.

It seems as though this alleged membership surge was first tweeted by Aaron Bastani, the co-founder of Novara Media (a media organisation that backs Jeremy Corbyn). It was later tweeted by shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon. Both tweets were posted on Saturday 10 June:

Image copyright @AaronBastani

Image copyright @RichardBurgon

Twitter users, including journalists, circulated this claim. The Independent and the Metro published stories about the rumoured membership surge (making clear that the tweets were the source).

Image copyright @PickardJE

Image copyright @DavidWhite020

However, Mr Corbyn's office sent out an email on 11 June to all members and supporters, referencing a different membership figure. The email said that, 'over 15,000 people… have joined Labour since polling day'.

BBC Trending contacted the Labour leader's office, who confirmed that they "don't recognise" the 150,000 figure. They did emphasise however that "many people" have joined the party since the election.

A member of the Labour National Executive Committee told BBC Trending that an additional 10,000 people had joined the Labour Party since 11 June, taking the total number of new members to 25,000 since the election.

Was it a typo from Richard Burgon? His office has not yet responded to our request for comment.

Blog by Sam Bright

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