Does the anti-Sunak campaign have legs?

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Good morning. Will Dry, a Downing Street special adviser, has quit Rishi Sunak’s team to join the Conservative Britain Alliance. This group has commissioned polls that are being used as a pretext to get rid of the prime minister.

As a rule of thumb, it’s always a good sign for a party leader if the resignations decline in public prominence. Very few people had heard of Simon Clarke, the Trussite former cabinet minister who called for Sunak to go on Tuesday. Even fewer have heard of Dry.

Nonetheless, the anti-Sunak campaign does have a half-decent theory of change. Some thoughts on its meaning and the big flaw at its heart below.

The plot thickens

Rishi Sunak is leader of the Conservative party because he enjoys the support of about 80 per cent of the parliamentary party. Although it’s not quite as simple as saying the 63 who rebelled against the government on the amendments to the Rwanda bill last week are all Sunak opponents and the remainder his supporters, it’s a pretty good indicator of the prime minister’s standing among his MPs.

As long as that remains the case, no number of silly polls in the Telegraph nor resignation statements by Downing Street aides in the Sun are going to remove Sunak as Tory leader.

Of course, part of the point of the silly polls is to sell Conservative MPs a narrative that their problems can be solved if only they get rid of Sunak and replace him with an “authentically conservative prime minister”. As one minister tells our team:

You can’t overestimate the psychological impact that poll has had on Tory MPs. Everyone has been asking each other — do you make it, do you keep your seat under the poll? It has focused minds.

As a theory of change, this really stands up and works. It is a big part of how Boris Johnson plotted against Theresa May: MPs were shown polling that essentially revealed they were doomed to defeat under May, and then shown polling of them surviving and thriving under Johnson.

But Sunak’s enemies have two problems. The first is that many MPs simply don’t believe that the Reform party is going to do anything like as well as the polls suggest, and that they will get most of those votes back. That makes it harder to sell a “you’re doomed: now panic and get rid of Rishi!” message.

The second, and much bigger problem, is that Sunak’s enemies don’t have an alternative candidate. This person needs to appeal to MPs from the centre and left of the party, and not just the right: someone like Suella Braverman is not going to be able to peel off enough support from Sunak to remove him.

That his critics are polling Sunak and Keir Starmer’s appeal against a fictional Conservative candidate is the biggest thing that Sunak has going for him: it highlights that while he may not be a perfect leader, he is at least a real one. Unless or until a viable alternative candidate emerges, I don’t think any number of statements or polls is going to change his position within the Tory party, though the attempt might well do more damage to him in the country.

Now try this

One of my regular gripes in this space is my view that many of the most famous artists in the world are actually underrated, because people feel foolish about saying “you should see Turner” or “Beethoven’s music is very good”. Nonetheless, both these things are true. Tonight I’m off to see Beethoven’s second piano concerto and I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve been listening to Mitsuko Uchida’s take on the concerto with Simon Rattle conducting a lot this week in preparation. I’ve added that to the Inside Politics Spotify playlist.

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