Rumours are swirling around Westminster of the potential of another Conservative prime minister being removed by palace coup as the party continues to trail the left-wing Labour Party and is facing a challenge from the right from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK as the country heads toward a general election.
Just 16 months after the Conservative Party establishment ousted short-termed PM Liz Truss and installed Rishi Sunak in Downing Street — expressly against the wishes of Conservative voters, who had rejected Sunak in favour of Truss in the leadership contest that followed the ousting of Boris Johnson — there are talks again about a change in leadership.
According to a report from Bloomberg, members of Sunak’s Cabinet met recently to discuss the possibility of removing the prime minister before this year’s general election amid growing concerns about the ex-Goldman Sach’s banker’s ability to connect to voters.
The news outlet, citing sources familiar with the talks, said that because there is no consensus among government ministers as to who could possibly step in as PM, Sunak’s position appears to be protected for the immediate future.
Tory insider Harry Cole notes in The Sun newspaper notes the mood in the party has soured as those at the top belatedly realise what outsiders have long known, that things are going desperately wrong. Feelings have “snapped” and top figures now realise Sunak should have been removed months ago, he claimed.
Nevertheless, per Bloomberg two unnamed ministers reportedly said that if a candidate emerged and could take over without another full-scale leadership contest, then Sunak would likely be on the chopping block.
Current contenders reportedly include establishment darling Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, the Bill Gates-tied leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who has emerged as a fan-favourite among the more conservatively minded Conservative Party voters.
Yet, it is unclear if any of the prospects have the force of will to unite the party, which, in reality, is a combination of two opposed political factions, with the small-c conservative nationalist wing and the globalist-oriented neo-liberal wing on the other side.
It is also uncertain whether any of the potential PMs have the charisma and persuasion abilities needed to regain the trust and convince voters in the Red Wall — former Labour strongholds which backed Boris Johnson in 2019 to get Brexit done — who feel the Conservatives betrayed their interests by opening the gates to record immigration following Brexit after promising to do the opposite.
The refusal of Sunak’s government to clamp down on immigration, with a record 1.2 million in net migration coming over the past two years, as well as instituting one of the highest tax burdens on the public since the Second World War despite the economic hardships facing the country following the coronavirus lockdowns and the energy crisis, has seen support for the party collapse.
Even during the series of scandals during the end of Boris Johnson’s government or the confusion and chaos of the two-month-long administration of Liz Truss, the party still enjoyed more support than under the “squish” government of Rishi Sunak.
A survey published last week from Ipsos UK found that just 20 per cent of the public back the Tories, the lowest level of support ever recorded by the firm since it began regular polling in 1978, and quite possibly the lowest ever level of support for the party in its 200-year history. The devastating poll went on to find that the Conservatives now trail Labour by 27 points, despite the left-wing party being headed up by an uncharismatic leader in Sir Keir Starmer and many of the party’s positions being to the left of the country as a whole.
Compounding issues for the Tories has been the rise of Refom UK, the rebranded Brexit Party founded by Nigel Farage, which has supplanted the Lib Dems as the third-most supported party in the country and is within striking distance in the polls of the Conservatives. With the defection of popular MP Lee Anderson from the Tories to Reform UK last week, the populist party will likely look to peel off more support from the Conservatives in the North and Midlands ‘Red Wall’ regions.
The damage the party could do to the Conservatives, particularly if Nigel Farage returns to the fold as a candidate, has been described by the Tory-friendly Telegraph newspaper as a potential “extinction-level event” for the party.
Following the report of Cabinet-level discussions about ousting Sunak, former minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns openly said on Thursday that she believes there needs to be new leadership to win back voters before the next election.
“I personally want a new leader before the election,” Dame Andrea told the BBC’s Today Podcast. She argued that a new leader in conjunction with “more conservative policies” could bring back “disaffected voters which we are seeing in the polling”.
Responding to the comments from the former cabinet minister, Prime Minister Sunak said: “I think actually the party is united in wanting to make sure that we don’t have the Labour government, because our plan is the right one for the country.
“And actually, we’ve been through a difficult couple of years. Of course that’s the case, whether it’s with Covid, recovering from that, the impact of the war in Ukraine.
“But the start of this year, we really have turned a corner and we’re now pointing in the right direction. You can see that most clearly with the economy.”
Sunak went on to declare that “nothing has changed” about planning for a general election in the second half of this year.
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