Plot to fast-track no confidence vote if PM calls early poll

TORY plotters want to fast-track the no confidence process to oust Rishi Sunak if he tries to call an early election, it was claimed yesterday.

One MP said some were drawing up electronic letters of no confidence that can be sent instantly by text or WhatsApp, in a bid to avoid a summer poll.

The aim would be to submit them within minutes if MPs caught wind that the Prime Minister was planning a meeting with the King to seek permission for dissolving Parliament.

Sir Graham Brady, who letters must be submitted to as chairman of the 1922 Committee, has let it be known he will accept them electronically, an MP said.

Fifty-three must be submitted to trigger a no confidence vote. Rebels claim the number of letters already submitted is in the mid-20s.

But some MPs said they did not think the strategy would work as a confidence vote is unlikely to take place immediately, potentially giving Mr Sunak enough time to see the King. He would also have to lose the vote; ex-PMs Boris Johnson and Theresa May survived theirs.

It comes amid fevered speculation that Mr Sunak may call an election as early as June or July due to dire poll ratings.This was fuelled by his unveiling of a surprise Easter honours list on Thursday. As it was outside the traditional New Year and King’s Birthday lists, Labour suggested it was the action of ‘someone who doesn’t expect to be PM much longer’.

MPs said there was plotting behind the scenes around how to thwart a summer poll. One backbencher said: ‘There’s some thought going on about how to undermine an early election.

‘We’re still trying to understand the mechanics of how that would work, because if Sunak has already asked for dissolution and then a leadership contest is announced, the strategy is surely done for because the King has already said yes.’

Another said: ‘If [Mr Sunak] tried to call an early election they’ll just do him in. So in that sense there won’t be an early election because he’ll just lose his job if he tries to do it.’

However, a third added: ‘I would eat my hat if he went early and didn’t wait until autumn. The concept of going in the summer off the back of what are undoubtedly going to be horrific local election results [in May] is just bonkers.’

Government sources say the ‘working assumption’ remains that the PM will call an election in the autumn.