Tory rebels have drawn up plans for a 100-day “policy blitz” in an attempt to turn around the Conservative Party’s fortunes as they intensify efforts to remove Rishi Sunak from office.
The prime minister is facing one of the most testing weeks of his premiership as the party prepares for a hugely challenging set of local election results on Thursday.
In a further blow to Sunak, Dr Dan Poulter, a former Tory minister, has defected to the Labour Party saying that he could no longer “look people in the eye” while he stayed in the Conservative Party.
The rebels have drawn up a five-point plan for a potential successor in an attempt to secure “quick wins” before the election. The measures include curbing legal migration, cutting the benefits bill and offering junior doctors a pay rise.
There are also claims that “coronation” conversations have taken place between Tory MPs on the right of the party and allies of Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons.
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Mordaunt is viewed by the rebels as a potential caretaker prime minister capable of uniting the right and left of the party in the run-up to the general election.
She told The Sunday Times this weekend that plotters pushing for a change in the leadership should stop “Westminster gymnastics and navel-gazing”.
Robert Jenrick, a former migration minister who is viewed as a potential candidate, called this weekend for a parliamentary “lock” on the number of migrants coming to Britain to reduce net migration to “tens of thousands”.
Sunak will face a vote on his future if 52 Tory MPs submit letters of no confidence. Whips are confident that the numbers are nowhere near that figure at present but Tory rebels believe that the local election results could lead to a surge in MPs coming forward. They think a confidence vote is likely if the Tories lose both Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands, and Ben Houchen, the Teesside mayor.
One rebel Tory MP said: “My concern is that we don’t have a significant response to Reform. We have a leader who is ill-suited to appealing to voters in the Red Wall. He is seen as an out-of-touch multi-millionaire who doesn’t share their instincts. If we lose Tees Valley it will be beyond diabolical.”
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A Tory rebel source said: “No more tinkering, dithering or managerialism — these are policies that can be introduced in a few months and then go to the country for people to make a decision. We’ve got to be clear and bold in our plan, and with the right messenger, to have any chance of winning otherwise it could be two or three terms of Labour.”
A senior government source said: “The only people who benefit from us continuously talking to ourselves, about ourselves, is Labour.”
The rebels’ move comes amid speculation that Sunak could call an early general election. On Saturday the prime minister repeatedly refused to rule out holding one in July. Allies said that he planned to wait until November for the election but that he had not ruled out going early if forced to do so.
Asked by Trevor Phillips on Sky News whether he could rule out an election, Sunak said that he could not “say anything more than I’ve already said”. He has previously said that a general election is likely to be held in the second half of the year.
Sunak hinted that he wanted to wait until the economy had turned around. “I’m determined to make sure that people feel when the election comes that the future is better, that we have turned the corner,” he said.
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Chris Philp, a Home Office minister, conceded that voters “do feel grumpy with the government” amid dire poll ratings for the Tories.
But on the Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg show on the BBC he predicted that the party’s position would “significantly improve” closer to a general election when “it becomes more of a choice rather than a sort of referendum on do you feel grumpy with the government”.
PANEL
The five-point plan drawn up by Tory rebels focuses on potential “quick wins” in the run up to the general election. They include:
• Attempting to end the junior doctors pay dispute with an offer of between 10 and 12 per cent
• Pledging to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands, including banning graduate visas.
• Increasing defence spending to 3 per cent by 2027. Sunak announced a target of raising defence spending to 2.5 per cent by 2030 last week.
• Cutting the benefits bill by reducing payments for mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.
• Bringing in new legislation to jail prolific offenders while building modular prison cells to house them.
