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Rishi Sunak sought to damp the anger of his internal Tory party critics over two resounding by-election defeats on Friday by insisting that “midterm elections are always difficult” for incumbent governments.
But Conservative insiders were quick to point out the party is far from midway through a five-year administration, without the luxury of several years left to turn around its fortunes before the next general election. Instead, voters are expected to head to the polls in mere months.
“It’s very tin-eared from the PM,” said one Tory MP. “It’s riled a lot of people, even though we have become conditioned to by-election defeats.”
What began as a terrible week for Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer — who faced criticism over his “shambolic” handling of a row over alleged antisemitism and was forced to drop a party candidate — has ended a worse one for the UK prime minister, with further storm clouds on the horizon.
The message relayed by voters on Thursday in Wellingborough, a seat in central England, and Kingswood, in the south-west, was ominous for Sunak. In the former constituency the Conservatives recorded the second biggest swing to Labour in a by-election since the second world war, while chalking up a second heavy defeat in the latter.
The dire results capped a tricky week for Sunak after gross domestic product figures on Thursday showed the UK slipped into a technical recession at the end of 2023.
A grim economic backdrop is difficult for the Conservatives not only because it is a key factor influencing how the public votes, but because it is the core theme on which Sunak is planning to fight the election campaign.
Given that one of his five priority pledges was to grow the economy, the data this week has also prompted critics to question the prime minister’s competence.
Sunak’s claim on Friday that “our plan is working” and the country is “heading in the right direction” raised eyebrows among some of his own MPs, as attacks resumed among his staunchest detractors in the party, who had silenced their criticism in the weeks before the contests.
The prime minister’s insistence that a low turnout at this week’s by-elections is evidence “there isn’t a huge amount of enthusiasm” for Labour has also been disputed.
Speaking to the Financial Times’ Political Fix podcast, Professor Sir John Curtice warned the prime minister has “reason to be concerned” by both Labour and Reform UK, “because both are doing him damage”.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the first Conservative MP to call for Sunak’s exit last November, revived her refrain with a warning to colleagues on social media site X that it was “last chance saloon to change course with a new leader”. She called for tougher measures on migration.
Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, the co-leaders of the New Conservatives faction of right-wing Tory MPs, also issued a damning statement accusing Sunak of presiding over “consensus politics” that centred on “high taxes, low security, managed decline”.
The pair conceded the prime minister had made some “positive steps” to win back lost voters — who they said were taking flight to Reform or “staying at home” rather than dashing into the arms of Labour — but added it was “plainly not enough”.
Setting out four demands, the MPs told Sunak to “change course” and announce his willingness to quit the European Convention on Human Rights, cut legal migration, reform welfare to usher more unemployed people into work, and slash income tax while raising tax thresholds.
Tory peer Lord David Frost, another long-standing detractor of Sunak, agreed the by-elections showed that “former Conservative voters are simply not coming out and voting Conservative”.
Writing on X, he echoed the analysis that the party’s troubles stemmed more from its own vote collapsing than an increase in support for Labour and called for a bolder offer “on tax and spend, immigration, net zero, public sector reform”.
The right-wing rebels may be disappointed on tax, however, after a new set of internal fiscal forecasts this week left Jeremy Hunt with less room for manoeuvre than predicted. The chancellor has warned his colleagues not to expect major giveaways in his March 6 Budget.
One senior party insider expressed despair at the lack of options open to Downing Street: “I don’t know what else the PM can do. He’s just got to keep plugging away and hope the economy picks up and the Budget goes roughly OK — although that’s more difficult now because of the headroom.”
Other Tory parliamentarians have swerved public criticism of Sunak and the conversation on many party WhatsApp groups was muted in the wake of the routs.
Privately, however, some MPs report that mutterings about a change of leadership are growing among some colleagues on the party’s centrist One Nation wing.
“More moderate people are beginning to say he should step down, leave with dignity, rather than be dragged out or face constant manoeuvres. There’s no one set of policies that can help us now, so it’s about the narrative of a personality change,” said one MP.
While many Tories believe it is unlikely that any other candidate than Sunak will lead the party into the general election, they warn that plotting is not likely to peak until after the local elections results in May.
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