After a pretty awful week, it’s fitting that Rishi Sunak ended it as he began it – by making news for not doing something. The Prime Minister’s hot exclusive that he’s not holding the general
election in May followed a similar pattern to him initially not calling out Tory donor Frank Hester’s alleged attack on Diane Abbott as racist, and not returning his £10m. On Monday, Sunak also caused some muttering among his backbench MPs by not doing enough to stop Lee Anderson from defecting to the Reform party. The uneasy mood – worsened by a Budget that has failed to shift the dial and self-inflected missteps – has led to a “vibe shift” on the backbenches, with MPs going “from being just resigned, totally vacant, quitting, to being actively angry”. It’s a sign of the hole that Sunak finds himself in that even his attempt to buy himself more time by signalling an autumn election could actually make things worse for his own position. Rebel Tories now believe they have time to get rid of him, install a new leader and present a fresh front to the voters in October. The Conservatives are already braced for some hefty losses in the local
elections on 2 May. The rolling maul of Parliamentary by-election losses looks set to continue, too. Almost unnoticed this week, the recall petition for a by-election in Blackpool South started on Tuesday, following the suspension of Tory MP Scott Benton for
BREAKING lobbying rules. A by-election is likely in late May, with a symbolic northern swing seat expected to go to Labour. One crumb of comfort for the PM is that at least Lee Anderson hasn’t triggered yet another by-election in Ashfield. At his unveiling as a defector to Reform this week, Anderson offered the lame excuse that calling a by-election so close to a possible general election would cost taxpayers needless expense. Now that Sunak has ruled out May, will Anderson reconsider? Don’t forget that Anderson had previously backed a Bill to make any MP who changes party to be instantly subject to a recall petition and by-election. And both Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless had the guts to trigger by-elections and win them when they switched to Ukip in 2014. Just as the PM will have to fend off the attack that he’s “squatting” in Number 10, Anderson risks looking like a “by-election bottler”. But he’s not the only senior politician to whom that label could apply. Last summer,
Boris Johnson had the perfect chance to rebuild his reputation after he was found guilty of deliberately misleading Parliament about “Partygate”. Following his suspension from the Commons, he could have stayed to fight the subsequent by-election in Uxbridge. The seat was indeed won by the Tory candidate Steve Tuckwell after a vigorous campaign attacking Sadiq Khan’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez). Read Next What the Red Wall really needs is not Boris Johnson Johnson repeatedly claimed that he had been the victim of a “witch hunt” and still had the backing of the public (and don’t forget, he did retain a chunk of local support ). But the stark fact is that he bottled a by-election that would have tested those boasts. Imagine if he had proved he was a fighter not a quitter. He could have spent the past eight months saying he was the only electoral elixir the Tory party retains. More importantly, right now he would be in the perfect position, in Parliament, to act as a last-gasp rallying point for Tory MPs in the “Red Wall” and elsewhere who are staring down the barrel of defeat. Friday was the Ides of March, the infamous date when Julius Caesar was killed by Brutus. If he were still Uxbridge MP, Classics scholar Johnson would have been ideally placed to exact revenge on the man he blames for his own downfall. But in his absence, his supporters are rebels with a cause but without a leader. Yet it’s also worth remembering that Johnson also bottled another comeback in October 2022, after Liz Truss’s implosion. Despite having the 100 backers he needed, and despite telling friendly MPs “I’m going to do it!’ , the former PM let them down just like he let down the voters of Uxbridge, and the country. Why? Because he couldn’t be sure he’d win. And amid this week’s fresh flurry of speculation that Johnson may or may not join the election campaign trail to help the Tories, it was clear he was not that enthusiastic about helping the PM. He’s unlikely to share a stage with Sunak and his foreign travel, plus his lucrative writing and speech-making schedule , means he won’t take a full part in the six-week election campaign. The calls to “Bring Back Boris” are like the first cuckoo of spring, with sightings claimed earlier and earlier each year. Johnson is indeed like a cuckoo, taking over the Tory nest until he was too big for it, and now often accused of putting himself before the party’s interests. Add in Partygate and his chronic inability to govern competently and it’s no surprise that a new poll this week by Tory peer and pollster Lord Ashcroft found that Johnson is seen as a huge liability among the voters, second only to Truss in his unpopularity. In the 2019 election, Johnson ruthlessly exploited Jeremy Corbyn’s unpopularity and the desire to “get
Brexit done” to deliver a stunning victory. But it’s a myth that he was particularly popular (his ratings were lower than Theresa May’s at the same point in the cycle). His time as PM made him even less liked. Ultimately, Johnson’s decision not to really roll up his sleeves and help the Conservatives at the next election may be driven by a miserable mix of cowardice and cynicism. He hates losing almost as much as he hates taking responsibility. It appears that he can see the writing on the wall of an historic defeat and doesn’t want to be tainted by it. Johnson may be calculating it will be much easier for him to make a comeback in a by-election during a Keir Starmer first term, then lead his party back from the wilderness once more. But I wonder how many Tories, let alone the wider public, will ever forgive him for not even trying to put up a fight. Paul Waugh resigned as i ’s chief political commentator in January to stand as the
Labour candidate for Rochdale, a contest won by Azhar Ali