Self-sabotage is avoided – but there are many who remain of one mind
It is fair to say that Sir Simon Clarke’s suggestion that the Tories should oust Rishi Sunak or face “an election massacre” has not gone down particularly well with his fellow Conservatives.
The former minister, who worked as chief secretary to the Treasury under Sunak as chancellor, has faced a backlash after becoming the second Tory backbencher to publicly urge the Prime Minister to resign.
Describing “asset to anchor” Sunak’s “uninspiring leadership” as the “main obstacle to recovery,” the former levelling up secretary now stands accused of “throwing his teddies in the corner” with his intervention in yesterday’s Telegraph.
Summing up the mood, former home secretary Dame Priti Patel posted on X, formerly Twitter: “Engaging in facile and divisive self-indulgence only serves our opponents, it’s time to unite and get on with the job.”
Andrew Bowie, the nuclear minister, was rather more direct in a Tory Whatsapp group, urging critics to “get a f---ing grip”, adding: “Can we, for more than five minutes, dispense with the civil war and leadership speculation?”
Yet while backbenchers opine over “another leadership psychodrama”, the truth is many Tories are privately thinking exactly the same as Sir Simon, not least after Yougov polling revealed they are “facing 1997-style wipeout”, with Labour projected to gain a landslide majority of 120.
As one former cabinet minister explained: “We know Rishi is absolutely useless but replacing him now would be an extraordinary act of self-sabotage.”
Isaac Levido, the Lynton Crosby protégé who is directing the Tories’ general election campaign, has repeatedly told MPS to “unite or die” and it seems that the majority are heeding his advice. While big beasts including Ms Patel and David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, have gone public with their criticism of the insurgents in their midst, grey hairs have also been quietly warning of the dangers of submitting letters of no confidence to Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 backbench committee.
One of the reasons last week’s threatened rebellion over the Rwanda bill eventually fizzled out is because “three wise men” in the form of former party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith, John Redwood and Sir Jacob Rees Mogg convinced colleagues not to hand victory on a plate to Sir Keir Starmer. Meanwhile, a number of senior Tories, including former defence secretary Liam Fox, have been urging Downing Street to “take the fight to Labour” by celebrating Conservative successes rather than allowing Sir Keir to “rewrite and twist recent history”. They are as frustrated as anyone in No 10 that Westminster is now dominated with talk of Tory infighting rather than the perils of an incoming Labour government.
Although Sir Simon and former skills minister Andrea Jenkyns are both thought to have submitted letters of no confidence, Brady joked to this newspaper on Monday that he “wasn’t as busy” as reports might suggest.
How long that lasts depends on two factors: what is in the budget and what Nigel Farage decides to do next.
Jeremy Hunt is currently being aggressively lobbied to make March 6 what one Tory MP described as “the Conservative budget to end all budgets,” adding: “If he doesn’t pull an enormous rabbit out of the hat, then we’re doomed.”
As one long-standing Tory explained: “The truth is, there isn’t some Sir Galahad marching to the rescue saying: ‘Don’t worry I’ve got this one covered’. The reality right now is that the next general election rests critically on what we say and what we do – not how we say it.
“Rishi hasn’t defined himself - the public doesn’t know who he is. It’s policy over personality at this stage. What he needs to do is take the fight to Labour and define how we’re different. If Rishi doesn’t do that or won’t do that, then we’re dead anyway.”
‘If Jeremy Hunt doesn’t pull an enormous rabbit out of the hat, then we’re doomed’