Early in April we catalogued the ways in which the party's internal selection process for MEPs was "fixed" by the party's EU enthusiasts. We called on the party to publish full data for the election process so that members could see the level of turnout, the number of spoilt ballot papers and the level of Tory membership. We suspended that campaign a few days later so that noone was distracted from the important local and London elections. We carried on that suspension through the period of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election but we are now resuming it. Up to 20% of ballot papers may have been spoilt because of the voting process that was devised to protect incumbents. We all need to understand what went wrong so that it never happens again.
In the May survey of Tory members we asked whether we should continue to press for full disclosure and an overwhelming majority of the 1,483 who voted said 'yes':
Party Chairman Caroline Spelman has now asked to meet with us to discuss the whole issue and we'll report back straight after that meeting.
