Who are the Conservative members who will decide the next prime minister?

Politics Explained: The Tory party refuses to release demographic details of its grassroots – but a few clues are available

Conservative MPs have performed their task – by whittling down the once 12-strong list of candidates for No 10 to just two – and now it is up to the Tory faithful.

So, who are these 160,000 grassroots members who, extraordinarily, amid the nation’s greatest crisis since Hitler was defeated, have the power to pick the prime minister who will lead us?

First, it is worth underlining just how eye-popping the situation is, the first time in history that the top job has been decided by party members, with MPs – let alone the general public – shut out.

On previous occasions when prime ministers fell mid-term, when John Major replaced Margaret Thatcher, when Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair, when Theresa May replaced David Cameron, MPs made the choice.

That noted, what we know about the make-up of the Tory membership is very little, because the party refuses to release demographic details.

However, helpfully, a research initiative by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sussex has been surveying members of all parties since 2015. This is what it has found about our new Tory masters:

* Around 97 per cent are white – so lacking the ethnic diversity of the UK population, which is only 86 per cent white.

* Nearly 40 per cent are above 66 years of age – compared with 18 per cent of the public, so the membership is also far older.

* Even more strikingly, seven in 10 are men – in a country where females (51 per cent) are in a narrow majority.

* Five per cent enjoys an income of more than £100,000 a year – compared with 1.5 per cent of the wider country, so they are significantly richer.

* Their favourite newspaper is The Daily Telegraph, followed by The Times then the Daily Mail – all, unsurprisingly, Conservative-supporting publications.

* No fewer than 57 per cent backed a no-deal Brexit as their first preference – more than twice the 25 per cent of the population which holds that view.

So, this selectorate is strongly white, male, wealthy, Telegraph-loving and fiercely opposed to compromise on Brexit. There does seem to be at least one candidate matching that description – his second name is Johnson.