by In the middle of this week a mega-poll that predicted an electoral wipeout for the Conservatives lurked both Mystery and a statement of the obvious. Who was behind it? No one seemed to know. But what do they want? It seems, a change from Rishi Sunak.
It is a sign of Sunak’s plight that the poll – fronted by Tory peers and clearly framed as showing the prime minister’s policies are driving the party into sin – was not the biggest act of disloyalty in a week when 60 backbenchers voted to amend his. main migration policy.
That said, the YouGov survey of 14,000 voters, extrapolated to constituencies to reduce the main post-election Conservative party result to 169 MPs, was arguably more ominous for Sunak, for a number of reasons.
First of all, he appears to face a new and so far unnamed opponent. Although the poll, detailed in Monday’s Daily Telegraph, was presented by Lord Frost, the estimated £70,000 cost was covered by the British Conservative Alliance, a previously unknown organization known as a “Conservative donor group”. only her.
If so, the organization has no internet presence, and no registration as a company, charity or electoral entity. Among those rumored to be behind who insisted that they are not included Paul Marshall, the hedge fund manager behind GB News, and a series of other figures in the firm rightwing Tory. A spokesman for Marshall denied paying for the poll and said he had never heard of the alliance.
Under British Polling Council guidelines, all polls must say who commissioned them. However, this only requires a contact name – in this case David Frost – and no need to specify who paid for the work.
Instead of facts, various rumors have swirled, including the idea that the supporters are working for the ministers or former ministers who want to replace Sunak, whether before the election or, probably, after that.
The agenda of those behind the poll was clear. The Telegraph and Frost both argued in Monday’s paper that the answer was to focus heavily on the concerns of Tory voters who were keen to fault Reform UK, with the former arguing that this could be the difference between a loss meaning landslides and a hung parliament.
While this recipe could be argued – YouGov took the unusual step of adding a note to explain the poll when it was released – such maneuvers are not well received by Sunak and his team, who are known to mad at senior officers No. 10.
On Monday afternoon, Isaac Levido, the Australian political strategist who is the director of Sunak’s clearly exasperated campaign, told a gathering of Tory backbenchers that it was time to “get serious” if they wanted to win the election. “Let me be clear: divided parties fail,” he warned them.
What does it all mean? As always it depends who you ask. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary, University of London, and a close observer of the Conservatives, said it appeared to be a salvo by a faction loyal to the small-state wing of the party.
“Obviously someone has some sort of concerted plan to get rid of Rishi Sunak. It’s not just about trying to push the Conservative party in a certain direction, they are so desperate that they might want to encourage a leadership challenge,” he said.
Whether this would succeed was another matter, Bale said: “I think most Conservative MPs have convinced themselves that they would be laughing their heads off if they went through all that again . And also, there’s no sane person waiting in the wings who would want to do it.”
David Campbell Bannerman, the former MP who is co-leader of the Boris Johnson-friendly Conservative Party, is the few Conservatives to be public about his desire to replace Sunak.
“Sunak will not ensure that we are out of power for 10 years or more. If you lose on the scale that these polls suggest, down to 160 Ts, it’s a big cliff to climb,” he said.
“I think Starmer can be beaten with the right policies and the right leader, or at least we’ll have a respectable showing. Right now, Conservative voters are on strike, they’re not coming out, and under Sunak they won’t come back.”
In contrast, one Tory official loyal to Sunak simply rolled his eyes when asked about the poll. “It’s probably people who wanted to bring Boris Johnson back, but frankly he’s just very helpful,” they said.
However, it had some uses, they said: “It’s clear that the majority of people in the country are more right about immigration than we are and it’s good to remember that.”
One thing was agreed by all sections of the party who insisted that they have no idea who is behind the British Alliance.
“I don’t know who they are. I’ve never come across them before,” said Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister. “When polls come out that show, seat by seat, that your party is not doing well it’s clear that you care.”
Although Rees-Mogg has been a sometime critic of Sunak, he said that if supporters of the mystery poll called for a change of prime minister, he would not support this: “I see no point in destabilizing your own party’s leadership so closely don. election. I don’t think it makes any sense.”
