Over the coming weeks, a group of people who make up less than one per cent of the British electorate will choose the U.K.’s prime minister. On average, Conservative members are older, more euroskeptic and richer than Britons as a whole. They are also more in favour of leaving the EU without an exit deal than their fellow voters. A poll of Conservative members conducted by YouGov found that 64 per cent of them thought that a “no deal” Brexit would have a positive impact on the economy in the medium to long term—far more than Britons as a whole. “If you were going to pick 160,000 people to represent a nation of 60 million you wouldn’t choose these ones,” said Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London, who researched the membership base.
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Professor Bale also commented on the leadership debate in: Financial Times, Express, Bloomberg, Time, Huffington Post, BBC World at one (from 34:40)