iNews

Could a June vote staunch Tory bleeding?

- Anne McElvoy Anne McElvoy presents the Power Play podcast for Politico

It was going to be May and now it isn’t. But it could be June – perhaps? This week, the buzz among some of the fractious Tory MPs heading off for Easter break is that only a June vote can cauterise the haemorrhag­ing of Tory support, and curtail the noxious drip of Tory supporters and ancien regime figures calling for Rishi Sunak to go.

Michael Gove, the Levelling Up Secretary and one of the few Sunak loyalists to have been an MP continuous­ly since 2005, has just told George Osborne and Ed Balls’ Political Currency podcast that he thinks a mid-to-late November poll is more likely, while claiming that he has “no inside informatio­n” – which is a bit like the Pope saying that he has no particular view on theology.

This fungible election date is mainly a sign of how reactive and panicky Conservati­ve MPs have become. Critics on the outer edges of the Euroscepti­c faction like Andrea Jenkyns have doubled down on the “sod it, why not?” school of thought on ditching Sunak.

This may not be fatal to the Prime Minister, but the unease in the Tory ranks also indicates that the PM has had difficulty repelling this mood – something his friends tell me he is “aware of and thinking hard about” as he takes a short holiday break.

One reason the June option has moved into the news is that it is the last window before the summer when politician­s can decently bother the public with a trek to the polls. It is a short enough run-up to tweak some announceme­nts and shoehorn in what the Chancellor calls a “fiscal event” (a pre-election Budget that provides a clearer tax dividing line with Labour), but long enough to plan a campaign and hit Labour areas of weakness still being worked through by Keir Starmer.

But the main reason why some Number 10 sources are flirting with this idea is that many MPs and departing ministers are warning that “things can only get worse”.

The departure this week of two ministers in a single day – Armed Forces minister James Heappey and skills minister Robert Halfon, a personable figure in the Commons – brings the total of MPs announcing they are quitting to just under 100.

The party is trailing badly in the polls and the local elections on 2 May are likely to be painful.

It hardly takes a genius to figure out that this feels like a tide going out. So when the PM speaks to “Red Wall” figures – including his downto-earth party chairman Richard Holden – the message, as one MP in a seat predicted to swing heavily back to Labour puts it, is: “Give us more to work with”.

An earlier vote would test Labour’s vague message and election readiness. Rachel Reeves’s recent Mais lecture emboldened her fan base, but left some pretty big holes in the trade-offs and risks the Opposition will propose to cure the economic and investment problems.

Therefore, the argument for June goes, an earlier poll would galvanise Conservati­ves around their targets: voters who have not made up their minds, or who can be “tipped” back from sort-of liking Labour to seeing the downsides and risks of a change.

Underlying this is also a less flattering message for Sunak, namely that time is running out to make him and his personal brand the answer to Tory woes.

Voters don’t get his message or personal appeal, however many interviews he gives about missing his kids when he overworks, which is most of the time.

So the clearer prospect is a campaign built around a modest economic revival and a tax-cutting budget, rather than the leader himself. That also gives the party more time to take credit for any decreases to inflation – and to concoct a clever Budget to test Labour’s plans.

My own view is more Gove-ian than the present “summer push” enthusiasm. Jeremy Hunt’s last Budget felt like a warm-up and even he has let slip that an autumn Budget is a “working assumption”. Hunt is not a Chancellor likely to bound into the prime ministeria­l flat next door waving a plan for a fast tax-lowering mini-Budget in just over two months.

October might be a good bet. I doubt it will be the week of the US election on 5 November, because it would dominate the news agenda, and December is a gamble as most government­s are loath to bother pre-Christmas shoppers with voting.

There is also one other warning from history over the “go soon in June” school of thought. It was the gamble that cost Theresa May her overall majority and effectivel­y ended her authority as Tory leader. That is hardly the playbook Sunak hankers to follow.

His bigger problem is not when the election is. It is what he believes it should be about – and how to fill that hole in the bleak spring Conservati­ve soul.

The June election gamble cost Theresa May her overall majority

 ?? STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA WIRE ?? Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech at City University last week galvanised her base
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA WIRE Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech at City University last week galvanised her base
 ?? ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom