Tory plot to topple Rishi Sunak fizzles despite crushing election losses
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
It was around midday on Friday that the Tory plotters who have been agitating against Rishi Sunak for the past four months finally admitted defeat.
As it became clear that the incumbent Conservative mayor Ben Houchen had won again in Tees Valley — albeit with a significantly reduced majority — the schemers agreed over the messaging app Signal that their rebellion had fizzled out.
“We’re off to the pub,” one of the Tory rebels told the Financial Times, adding that conspiring to replace the UK prime minister had been “fun while it lasted”.
The small cabal of rightwing Conservative MPs and former advisers conceded that the victory clinched by Houchen, the Tory poster boy for levelling up, had shored up Sunak’s position despite the party suffering crushing losses in council elections across England.
Number 10 insiders had fretted over the past week that losing both the Tees Valley and West Midlands mayoralties could have sparked contagion within the party, with the rebellion spiralling beyond this narrow group to more Tory MPs.
Early returns on Friday suggested the Conservatives were on track for the worst result in council polls in 40 years, coupled with the loss of the Blackpool South parliamentary by-election on a 26-point swing to Labour.
However, Downing Street earned a reprieve on Friday morning when one of Sunak’s most prominent Tory critics declared it was “unlikely” that rightwing rebels would be able to rally enough supporters to topple him.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the first Tory MP to publicly call for Sunak’s exit last November, told the BBC it was “looking unlikely” that the prime minister would face a vote of no confidence: 52 MPs must submit letters to trigger such a vote.
Former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, a staunch Boris Johnson ally and another harsh critic of Sunak, also dismissed the idea of replacing the prime minister before the general election, telling ITV it would be “madness”.
Her verdict offset a warning by former Tory cabinet minister Justine Greening, who told Sky News that Sunak was still at risk. “I think a lot of MPs will take the bank holiday weekend to consider what these results mean in their own communities and for them personally,” she said.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the former Tory chancellor, also said that while he did not personally support any proposal to replace Sunak, some fellow MPs “might well think, actually, we might as well roll the dice with a new leader”.
He added the local elections showed that “there’s no such thing really as a safe Tory seat anymore”.
As Friday afternoon drew on and some of the plotters met for negronis, they maintained that even as they pulled back from their rebellion, history would vindicate their belief that the Tory party would have benefited from a new leader and a more rightwing policy platform.
“This is what happens next: Sunak limps on, he gets smashed at the general election, by Reform principally. Then we’ve gone from needing a 100-day plan to needing a 10-year plan. It’s going to take a long time to get back [into power],” the rebel insider predicted.
But while Sunak’s position looks secure for now, he is under mounting pressure to sharpen his agenda in the wake of the council polls. Jenkyns warned that voters had delivered a message to him at the ballot box on Thursday, saying: “Wake up, be Conservative, or we lose.”
She urged the prime minister to embrace “radical” Conservative policies, called on him to launch a cabinet reshuffle to bring in more members of the Tory right, and added: “We need to find a role for Boris [Johnson].”
Influential Tory commentator Tim Montgomerie, the co-founder of the ConservativeHome website popular with the party faithful, summarised the view of many MPs on X: “The evidence is clear: things are getting worse rather than better under Sunak. The Tories continue on the same path at their peril.”
Nonetheless, Conservative officials remained hopeful that the party would clinch the mayoral contest in the West Midlands and lose only narrowly in the capital.
“If Sunak wins two and brings London close, that’s a great result,” said one party insider, who argued the narrative would “flip” in the prime minister’s favour.
Optimists within the party appealed to other silver linings amid the storm clouds, including the failure of Reform UK to beat the Tories into third place in Blackpool South and the backlash against Labour’s stance on Gaza in areas with high Muslim populations.
But other Tory MPs were in despair, pointing out that the election results announced so far broadly aligned with national opinion polls and confirmed the party was on track for a rout at the general election.
“It’s as bad as people think. But is it going to lead to a revolt [against Sunak]? Probably not. The stark reality, though, is this means we are on for a Labour government with a significant majority. It means a bunch of cabinet ministers are going to lose their seats,” said one party insider.
While Sunak is now facing intense demands from the right of his party to tack in their direction, “One Nation” moderate Tories made clear that they would be petitioning him to cleave to the centre ground with appealing, mainstream policies.
“The votes that we can retain or win back are not solely by going after Reform. Our message to him is — you will do as well as you possibly can by retaining the breadth of the church,” said one.
Another centrist MP anticipated that rival Tory factions would make their case through a series of interventions and opinion articles in weekend newspapers in an open display of disunity. “It’s all shadow boxing. Ultimately, the narrative of the divided party will persist,” the MP said.
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