Rishi Sunak is losing control and power is “seeping away”, say senior Conservative MPs, as the UK prime minister grapples with multiple political problems and dire poll ratings.
A number of senior Tory MPs from across the party told the Financial Times that Sunak needed to get a grip of his Downing Street operation, with renewed mutterings of a threat to his leadership.
Sunak on Tuesday was grappling with the continued fallout from the defection of Lee Anderson, former Conservative deputy chair, to the populist Reform UK party, which has alarmed the right of the Tory party.
The prime minister was also under pressure to return more than £10mn of Tory donations from a businessman reported to have said that looking at Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black female MP, made “you just want to hate all Black women”.
Sunak’s spokesman on Tuesday morning refused to describe the alleged comments by Tory megadonor Frank Hester as “racist” but Downing Street finally called them “racist and wrong” just before 7pm, more than 24 hours after the remarks were first reported.
The failure of last week’s Budget to raise party spirits, coupled with a sense that Sunak is now being battered by events rather than controlling them, has created a mood of unrest among many Tory MPs.
“The lack of grip is scary,” said one former cabinet minister in the Tory centre, who like other colleagues spoke on terms of anonymity. “You don’t want to be in a position where power is seeping away. That’s what’s happening at the moment.”
The Conservative right is furious that Anderson was suspended from the party for refusing to apologise for remarks he made about Islamists “taking control” of London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan. The Ashfield MP defected to Reform on Monday.
“They threw him to the wolves,” said a Tory right-wing former minister, arguing that a more efficient whips office and Number 10 operation could have found a way to bring him back into the fold.
“The Number 10 operation is dreadful. I’d go so far as to say it’s more chaotic than it was when Boris Johnson was there and that’s saying something,” the former minister added.
Anderson told the FT the “country has already made up their minds” on the Conservatives, while the rightwing New Conservatives faction, said: “We need to change course urgently.”
A survey by the More in Common think-tank, conducted after the March 6 Budget, found the Conservatives had received “zero poll bounce” from the fiscal statement and its 2p cut in national insurance.
Sunak’s colleagues on the Tory left are frustrated by his failure to erode Labour’s persistent 20-point opinion poll lead and his attempts to court the Tory right by saying, for example, that Britain was descending into “mob rule”.
A former minister from the One Nation group of Tory centrist MPs said: “There’s a weakness in Number 10 which is a real concern. There’s a lack of political nous, a certain arrogance. The mood is fatalistic.”
Against this backdrop, Tory MPs are again claiming colleagues are submitting letters of no confidence in Sunak to Sir Graham Brady, chair of the backbench 1922 committee.
Brady, the shop steward for Tory MPs, briefly discussed the political situation with Sunak on Monday night on the margins of a scheduled meeting of the 1922 executive.
Under Tory party rules, a vote of no confidence would be triggered if 15 per cent of the 348 Conservative MPs — 53 in total — submitted letters. “Five letters went in yesterday, I’m reliably informed,” said one rightwing rebel.
Most Tory MPs believe their party would not be reckless enough to overthrow another prime minister in an election year, although they accept that the local elections on May 2 are a moment of danger for Sunak. A bad set of Conservative results would be a serious blow to his authority.
“It would be quite bold to think the solution to your problem is a fourth prime minister in a parliament,” said one ally of Sunak, who said the prime minister was “cracking on”, including conducting a tour of the country.
The sense of disarray was heightened by a report that Boris Johnson, former prime minister, would campaign at the general election to help Sunak shore up the party’s working-class “red wall” seats won from Labour in 2019.
Nadine Dorries, a former minister and friend of Johnson, said the story was “rubbish” and had been planted by Number 10 to try to placate rightwing Tory MPs following Anderson’s defection.
Meanwhile, ministers were forced to explain the Conservative party’s decision not to return more than £10mn donated by Hester, a healthcare technology entrepreneur, after his reported comments about Abbott. She said the alleged comments were “frightening”.
Mel Stride, work and pensions secretary, on Tuesday morning said Hester’s remarks were “inappropriate” but added: “I don’t think what he was saying was a gender-based or race-based comment.”
But Kemi Badenoch, business secretary, added to the sense of confusion later when she posted on social media: “Hester’s 2019 comments, as reported, were racist. I welcome his apology.” Downing Street eventually followed suit.
Sunak’s team deny the Number 10 operation is misfiring, while supporters of the prime minister note there is little that he can do to stop the likes of Hester or Anderson from causing trouble.
Nevertheless, some Tory MPs fear party discipline could break down further in the coming months and that Sunak might be better to call an election in May before things get worse.
“I’m betting on May,” said one veteran Tory MP. The prime minister has until March 26 under electoral rules to decide whether to call a snap election to coincide with local elections on May 2.
Additional reporting by Anna Gross