Tory MPS fear this could be another poll tax or Black Wednesday

Politicians from all sides of the party get thousands of emails expressing anger over chief aide’s actions

CONSERVATIVE MPS have witnessed a “mailbox rebellion” over revelations about Dominic Cummings’s trip to Durham.

MPS from all sides of the party have seen an influx of messages of public anger and calls for the Prime Minister to sack his chief aide.

One Tory MP has told colleagues he plans to forward all constituents’ letters about Mr Cummings to No10.

Another told The Daily Telegraph he watched dozens of messages flood his inbox within minutes after Boris Johnson finished his Sunday press conference, in which he fully defended Mr Cummings’s actions.

The Prime Minister told millions of viewers that he had concluded Mr Cummings “acted responsibly and legally and with integrity”.

A senior Conservative MP told The Telegraph: “The backbench Whatsapp group is full of pretty annoyed people. We are getting thousands of angry emails every day. Including hundreds of emails from Brexiteers and Boris cheerleaders.”

They added: “The PM’S statement made it much worse. He should have said there is going to be an independent inquiry – if he has broken the rules he should go, if he hasn’t he should stay.”

One MP who is also a ministerial aide told The Telegraph: “People are not happy ... [Cummings] is damaging the party and the Prime Minister.”

A number of MPS said the Cummings matter could be a pivotal moment for the party, damaging it as much as the poll tax or Black Wednesday.

A senior Conservative MP and former minister said: “This could be an ERM moment, where the public turn against us.”

Referring to Black Wednesday in 1992, which dealt a blow to the Conservative government’s credibility from which the Tories took years to recover, the MP said: “The party’s response [in 1992] was awful. It looked really callous. The public just turned against us for the next four years. This feels like that.

“The reason why Boris was so popular is because people thought he related to working people. No one cares if he’s posh. It’s about, ‘Do you have empathy? And can you relate?’”

The MP said defending Mr Cummings “literally looks like your worst kind of Tory. It plays into every stereotype people have of us”.

Another MP said the situation “feels more poll tax than ERM, actually”.

Repeated concerns have been raised over damage to the Conservatives’ popularity in former “Red Wall” seats, some of which voted Tory for the first time last year. One Tory MP who won one of Labour’s constituencies in the north of England said: “The response has been massive. I’ve had hundreds of emails from constituents, and about a third look as though they have been coordinated by Labour, two per cent are from people who think it’s a media witch-hunt and the rest are from normal down-to-earth people who are furious at what’s gone on.

“We need to make Boris change his mind. The situation is still recoverable but the more the patient bleeds the harder it will be to rescue it.

“People are absolutely livid about this. The fact is that No10 misjudged the public mood. They thought no one would care about this because they never thought people would stick to the lockdown rules anyway, but the fact is people have, and Boris looks tineared.

“None of us can understand why Boris didn’t launch an inquiry to buy himself some time. That way he and other ministers would have been able to say they couldn’t discuss it because it was the subject of an inquiry, but now it feels as though Dom will have to go by the end of the week.

“A lot of people are hoping this will get sorted out in the next 24 hours but if it doesn’t there are an awful lot more backbench MPS who will go public. They just can’t afford not to take a stand as they have an electorate to answer to.

“If the rebellion grows to 40 or 50 MPS it becomes a problem for Boris because that is his majority gone.

“A lot of the anger is being channelled through the whips, who are passing all of this on to the Chief Whip. It feels as though the Chief Whip is the person who needs to go to Boris and tell him he needs to change his mind.

“The whips aren’t disciplining people who are calling for Dom to be sacked. They have been very sympathetic. The whips are constituency MPS too, so they have also been getting it in the neck from voters.”

Dehenna Davidson – whose constituency contains Barnard Castle, to which Mr Cummings drove his family – said: “If rules have been broken, appropriate action should be taken.”

The response among MPS has not been factional. One MP said: “Whenever things flare up it is usually one or other wing of the party. This one is the whole lot of us. This causes us no end of unnecessary grief ”.

Tracey Crouch, the Conservative MP and former minister, yesterday said: “I am not sure I have felt, in my 10 years as an MP, so frustrated, cross, confused or impotent as I do now.”

In a Facebook post she said: “I have had to tell people they can’t go to funerals, say goodbye to the ones they love, see the family newborns that they will grow to love, visit the graves of parents, siblings or worse, children, and visit friends who are dying.”

Ms Crouch added: “I am pretty peed off though. At a time when we should be still focusing on the remaining weeks of this pandemic, spending my days replying to understandably cross and angry constituents is not what I should be doing.

“And this is also why I feel impotent in many respects. Lockdown is not over yet. I have to keep interpreting guidance and saying to constituents you can or you cannot do x, y, z. At the moment, and quite frankly, that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.”

Some Conservatives last night stepped in to defend Mr Cummings, however.

Lord Blencathra, who as David Maclean was the former Tory chief whip, told The Telegraph: “Tory MPS calling on Dominic Cummings to resign should return to Planet Earth. They are doing the job of the Left-wing media and establishment who are hell bent on destroying the man who won the referendum and the election.

“The Conservative Party would not be in government if it were not for Cummings; he is more important than half the Cabinet combined and that is why he is a hate figure of the Left.

“They want rid of him not for any breach of lockdown but they know he is pivotal to Tory government success and they want revenge for his stunning victories on Brexit and the election. This is a totally bogus campaign against Cummings and Tory MPS at all levels should not do their opponents’ dirty work.”

Other MPS said they were waiting for party grandees including Sir Graham Brady, chair of the influential 1922 committee of backbench MPS, to give a view on the matter. A number of Tory MPS said the Prime Minister should expect tough questions from the liaison committee, which he is due to face tomorrow.

The committee, which will be made up of chairs of other Commons committees, will include questions from Tory MPS Caroline Noakes and Simon Hoare, both of whom have been vocal in criticising Mr Cummings.