Yes it is too late, and it would be a nightmare having a leadership campaign in the middle of an election campaign. At best he could step down and appoint an interim leader, with a new leader to be chosen after the election, but that would be shambolic if voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is.
Tories attacking each other to become leader, and then telling us all why the person that they just said would be the wrong choice for the country is actually the best choice for PM.
It would be highly entertaining.
But better than that it would highlight during a period of increased public awareness just how flawed our political class become.
We sorely need to incentivise the people who run our country to do so for us, and not for themselves.
Can't unless they scrap the party rules. The Tory Party leader needs to be a sitting MP.
Interestingly, they'd probably have to scrap the rules anyway if there was a leadership competition during the election as there are currently no sitting MPs.
They'd probably just crown a leader again like they did with Sunak.
Sunak would not have made it past the membership due to him being perceived as having wielded the knife on Boris and Truss who were both favourites with the grass roots. MPs had to collude to deny the membership a say in the leader of their party
Yeah, my point is that he was the obvious candidate to be nominated for PM by collusion. Who would the candidates be this time? I suspect Mormont, Braverman and Badenoch would all be interested, but would all be fairly useless (or worse), as well as being navigated around last time implies lack of suitability. Hunt might be more credible, and to a much lesser extent Cleverly but I'm not sure they'd be interested.
The membership would probably get behind Kemi and Penny however will all depend on who is left after the election.
Hunt would be unlikely to receive membership support and he may not have any interest in the leadership after his previous defeat.
Cleverly could be an option if he survives and certainly could win membership support as he has not managed to majorly offend in frontline roles.
It could possibly save them from oblivion and result in a hung parliament if he offered a second chance vote to unbrexit. Would be him correcting his past mistake at least.
It should be Cameron, on the grounds that ultimately all the politics over the past eight years has grown out of his decision to hold a Brexit referendum. If anyone should carry the can for what has happened since then it should be him, IMO
If people seriously thought Cameron would be leader, I think Tory polling would be higher.
However, it would be widely known that he's a placeholder until after the election, so the moderates that may be tempted back would be scared off by Braverman or Garage looming over his shoulder
> If voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is
Imagine living in a world where we had had, I don't know, four consecutive prime ministers in recent memory who inherited the position without being voted for first.
(not the same situation I know, but still leaves a unpleasant taste in the mouth)
Yep, that sounds terrible.
But, can it get any worse? I’d suggest someone good with a sword would do better than Sunak? PM for PM. I think you see them pick up a couple of points.
Sunak is gone at this point.
Personally I hope he sticks it out, I want to witness the complete demise of the party that brought us austerity, Brexit, covid parties to name but a few highlights.
>that would be shambolic if voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is
On the one hand yeah, people want to know who the PM would be (tho at this point I don't think it'll make a difference), but on the other hand we really need to change the voting system if people really are voting based on a leader. Because this isn't the US Presidency, and we aren't voting for a leader. We vote for constituency representatives.
No chance. If he resigned now that would ensure that they'd not only lose the election (which is almost a certainty regardless) but likely not even become the opposition. It would be way too easy of an attack line for Lib Dems and Reform to talk about how you dont even know who you're voting for. I imagine Farage would sweep up votes.
He has to carry on, its all about damage limitation now which reflects why their policies are so focused on their key demographics.
Or opens his coat to reveal...he's two child-sized Corbyns!
...imagine that for a long game. Achieves BREXIT, destroys Tories, returns to Islington and Tofu.
No way Farage agrees to take over the Tories now, he won't want the loss on his record.
But currently he is who I'd put money on being our next next PM. I think hes in a really good position to benefit from any struggles Labour have in power.
>he is who I'd put money on being our next next PM
I think even if Labour are quite mediocre I can't see a significant proportion of the population voting for Farage. I think moderate tories would rather vote for Starmer and no one left of centre right would ever vote for him. He represents a very vocal minority.
Brexit was not the same as there have always been anti-EU voices across the political spectrum. A vote for Farage is a vote for pure right wing populism with no spine behind it whatsoever. I don't think he'd manage to get anywhere near a majority.
The fact that people are talking about Farage taking over the Tories shows how far too the right they’ve moved. Even directly after the referendum this would never have been seen as a possibility he was far too the right of the Conservatives at that point
What time do the candidates have to be locked in? If he doesn't do it by that time today, he can't. Also he's high ceiling/ low base kind of politician, I suspect the blue wall would immediately move to the Lib Dems, he might be able to play to the red wall though.
4pm.
I’m sure there’s contingency plans in place if someone were to die or for some other reason become unable to stand at the election, but it’s surely too late to make a deliberate switch now.
Yeah but if he’s swanning off into the sunset with his millions, why would he give a fuck? He could just stick two fingers up to his party on the way out.
Honestly I’m starting to think this farce deserves a biopic. Maybe get Dev Patel to play the hapless Sunak (probably too tall though), born privileged, makes ridiculous amounts of money as a banker, marries into one of the richest families in the world becoming even more rich, thinks he’s can do no wrong, becomes prime minister on a technicality, and then it all unravels as it becomes obvious he’s really not very good at anything and has been getting by on his privilege, connections and wealth his entire life. Though I’m sure the realisation never hits him. He’s still sure he’s brilliant.
I hate Sunak intensely and I think he's literally the embodiment of everything I loathe about wealthy background privileged rich kids failing upwards far beyond their experience or capability. I think he's a smarmy reptilian fraud.
That said - I hope he stays as Tory leader for the election because he's likely to annihilate the tories as an electoral force for the rest of my life.
‘Rishi flicked his gaze from face to face, but there was no pity to be found. Knees buckled as he was pushed into his chair.
‘For a moment, he thought to beg. To cry. Plead for mercy. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not like this.
‘But the grey suits were remorseless. Someone leaned forward and thrust a plate onto the table. A plate containing a single, toasted bacon sandwich.
‘Rishi’s lip trembled. The order came:
‘Eat.’
My Dad is a life long Tory that's terrified of, "the left," because of a lifetime of poisoning by the Daily Mail. He's chosen to simply not vote in this election. You're doing a great service to the UK Rishi, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Unless the Tories can get the ghost of Thatcher to be leader again they've got no chance.
Changing leader, in the middle of an election, would definitely lose them more votes, though I guess an argument could be made that they might actually lose less votes changing leader than letting Sunak and his political instincts run riot for the next 4 weeks.
Maybe but Boris stood down before the recall petition could be submitted. Chances are he would not have been an MP for this election whatever happened.
It is madness to change leaders. Change Sunak with Mordaunt or Badenoch, and the Tories end up in a situation where the new leader is associated with a massive defeat. Their reputation is then damaged.
Rather than wasting talent, they should let Sunak take the blame and replace him after the election.
It isn't Sunak making gaffes or not attending the D-Day commemorations that have meant he has lost this election.
It is partygate and the mini-budget that are to blame. Both of these are out of Sunak's control. He can't do much about them, other than to distance himself from Johnson and Truss (which he hasn't done).
Replacing the leader doesn't change a thing.
He was, but in one of the very few (and likely competely unintentional) savy political moves from Sunak he managed to play it off as being "ambushed with cake that one time" as compared to BoJo throwing massive ragers every night.
Given that he's both teetotal and a massive dweeb, this is the one time I'm willing to believe that he was keeping away from the No. 10 parties as much as he feasibly could.
Yes. But a lot of people don't actually know that. They just think it was Johnson.
If anything that proves the point even more because there really is nothing he can do about it regarding his own attendance there.
I think half the problem is the fine was next to nothing when there were people up and down the country getting fined thousands and you have someone with deep pockets fined £50
Still waiting for Starmer (or anyone) to bring up Rishi's Partygate fine in a debate and then when he apologises publicly again just ram the knife in again by reminding the public of the funerals we weren't allowed to go to, the births we were not allowed to go to, the visits to care homes where all we could do was wave through a window, the fact we weren't allowed more than 5 miles from our house, the fines for sitting down on park benches, the party the night before the Duke's funeral where even the Queen sat by herself with a facemask on. And how that was all Tories, and Rishi was a part of all that.
And then moving quickly on before Sunak can mention furlough again
> Rather than wasting talent, they should let Sunak take the blame and replace him after the election.
That is absolutely the strategy. Notice how very few senior Tories are getting involved in the campaign. Sunak barely even mentions them. Never any talk about "my team" or "my party". It is all "I will do this" or "I have done this".
The plan is for him to be the fall guy, and he's accepted that himself.
This analysis aligns with poll tracking over the last few years, with Labour overtaking the Tories over Partygate as an inflection point and larger gains over the mini-budget.
Not to mention that Morduant looks like she could easily lose her seat. But it would be great for her, PM's pension for life about £130,000 per year for her office. So that she can deal with matters relating to her time as PM, such as attending Remberance Day and D-Day memorials. As well as dealing with various correspondence.
If there's anything I've learned about this country over the last fourteen years, it's that any Tory leader could go so far as to eat a baby on live television and at least a third of the nation would still vote for them. Nobody gave a damn about the attacks on large families, the unemployed and the disabled that came under Cameron. Even fewer people gave a damn about Home Secretaries like Theresa May, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman eroding our civil liberties.
Only catastrophic fuck ups like Partygate and Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget nuking the UK economy are giving Keir Starmer a chance.
Somehow I get the feeling this D-Day gaffe is being overblown and it's not going to collapse Tory support, as much as I think that this is a scheduling conflict that should have been avoided in the first place. Labour would have been utterly eviscerated for doing the same but that's because our country is pretty damn right wing and holds the left to double standards visible from space.
The only reason I think this may have a slim chance of hurting Rishi's polling further is that the older generations are also pretty damn patriotic. If there's one thing you should never do in front of a British pensioner, it's disrespecting the sacrifices our countrymen made in World War 2.
> at least a third of the nation would still vote for them
Tories are struggling to hit 20%. There's a serious chance they get less than a fifth of the vote, from the ~2/3rds who turn out to vote, from those eligible to vote in the first place. That diehard tory bloc is closer to a tenth of the nation.
Think it will probably hurt the Tories by solidifying some of those voters wavering between Conservative and Reform, as they're the very demographic likely to be most offended by a show of disrespect to veterans.
Given the Tories strategy over the last decade has been 'appear more right wing to stop voters going to UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform', this was about one of the worst manoeuvres Sunak could have made at a time when he's not courting the centre, has given up even trying to appeal to the left, and is hoping to monopolise the right. Particularly on the week Farage returns, and the day before Farage is in a debate alongside the Tory leadership hopeful who represents Portsmouth. Not like Mordaunt's going to risk pissing off the military, and not an easy one for her to defend her leader on.
If I were cynical, it seems like the best reason for doing it is to try and hurt Mordaunt's leadership chances - either she defends the indefensible and annoys her constituents, or shows party disloyalty during an election campaign. It's about all I've got, as there's literally no good reason for him to have done it
Even without these things even if they weren't such obvious tea leafs even if it wasn't for immigration (I like immigration being one) the fact that people have less money in their pocket than before the Tories came in 14 years ago, a complete break with the last 200 years surely dooms them.
I heartily recommend the Tories to have *yet another* leadership contest in the coming weeks because nothing says ‘strong and stable’ while claiming the opposition will be chaos, more clearly than publicly shitting your pants, *again*.
Do you know, I was wondering to myself the other day: what if Mordaunt used [the big TV debate tonight](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877v0e86vko) to actually attack her own leader?
She's got nothing to lose. Rishi has less than a month, now, of being Prime Minister / of being leader of the Conservative Party. If Penny is pinned into spending her whole evening defending the indefensible, what's the point?
There's lots of good reasons to throw Rishi under the bus this evening. There are no good reasons to support him.
She won't attack him, but she also won't put any effort into defending him. The debate for Mordaunt is all about burnishing her own personal image ahead of a tough fight to keep her seat, then Tory leadership if she makes it that far.
She won't want to come across as a snake, but she's not going to put herself in the Sunak firing line either.
While I agree with most that it's unlikely they'd change the leader mid campaign it's certainly interesting that Penny Mordaunt is taking part in the next TV debate instead of Oliver Dowden. Every other party is using either their party leader or deputy leader.
If she were to over perform and result in a decent +% to the Tory vote it's not impossible that she could take the reigns. I think that right now most Tories are accepting they have lost so any small recovery would be seen as a positive even if they still lose the election.
I think she's likely doing it because a good performance by her could be enough to save her seat. She's got a reasonable level of personal approval with her constituents and in polls in her constituency she performs better against Labour than a hypothetical generic Tory candidate.
She's sitting very much in the margin of error at the moment, so even a 1 or 2% boost could give her a more a stronger personal position.
And she's going to be fully aware that the future of the Tory party depends entirely on who survives the election. If she's the only big name that keeps their seat, she'll be a shoe in for leader and can pull the party back towards the less extreme right.
And what's most likely to tank her personal approval with her constituents?
Defending the PM missing the D-Day celebrations.
Rishi sure is doing well at destroying every vestige of semi-competence in the party
If there’s any justice Sunak will not only preside over the complete annihilation of the Tory Party but he’ll also be humiliated by losing his seat. I’ve just listened to his apology and it was pathetic beyond measure. FFS somebody take that shovel off him and hit him with it.
Did you hear him say just now that it's wrong for his opponents to politicise his decision to leave the commemoration in order to do a campaign interview? Absolutely pathetic...
Offending D Day veterans sounds like a Thick of It script, it’s an absolute nightmare scenario for the Conservative Party trying to fend off Reform. The fact that Sunak and his team didn’t see an issue with leaving early just shows a staggering level of political incompetence.
His role now is to be the fall guy. They're going to try to pin everything on this, but the polls are quite clear that the Tory's lead was lost during the Owen Paterson scandal, their polling was demolished by Partygate, then turned into a catastrophic historic loss by Liz Truss. Sunak failed to turn things round from this point, but the whole sorry mess needs to be hung around their necks (*and* the neck of Farage), never mind what came before.
From the deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s leading to the financial crash, ideological privatisations in the 1980s leading to sewage in the rivers, seas, beaches and drinking water, austerity strangulating the recovery and leading to the collapse of public services and ultimately costing us more through short-termist dumb false economy, Brexit leading to poorer regulations, stunted growth, exacerbating the cost of living crisis, the labour shortage and increased immigration without paying for the services or housing to make that work - it *all* needs to be hung around *all* their necks.
Not just Sunak's.
Politically it's too late. It would basically set a bonfire under an already damaged Conservative election strategy.
Any new party leader would also presumably have to be signed up to campaign on the existing manifesto because that's due to be released in a matter of weeks, so they wouldn't be able to campaign on a different base than Sunak.
I fully expect the Conservatives to drop in the letters to the 1922 Committee about 30 seconds after the General Election results come in.
No. My belief is that he doesn't think he can win but could keep Tory losses to less than half of their seats, giving them a base to recover. If he leaves now, then reform will going sweep through anywhere that isn't won by Labour.
Sidenote: he probably called the election knowing there was no longer any hope of recovery and didn't want to hang on until Christmas. IIRC, Jim Callaghan had a similar view in the late 70s, but events took hold before he could act.
Is it possible under our unwritten constitution and parliamentary rules for a government to just concede?
I imagine not, but a constitutional expect may be aware of some arcane precedent.
If the elections been called and I think legally we have to have one, their conceding would just be giving up on campaigning or mass step downs and switches to reform.
There is still weeks of "campaign" ahead so who knows what insanity is in store.
Count how many times she says ‘he has admitted it was a mistake and apologised’ and something something Starmer supported Corbyn who would have surrendered the country to the Russians.
Assuming she makes it through this election Mordaunt was a likely future leader. I expect this debate was her big chance to 1) shore up support to escape personal defeat and 2) position herself as a leader. Now she’ll be the face of this Sunak D Day gaffe.
Has to be his bacon sarnie moment. I cannot see anyone coming back from this. Reform smell blood. Could be a Portillo moment him losing his seat.
I'm fairly aroused typing that like.. Ngl. Election night gonna be swell.
I'm curious what would happen if Sunak also resigned as prime minister at the same time.
I think it would trigger a constitutional crisis. Usually the King appoints whomever holds the confidence of the house of commons. But as of last Thursday all of the MPs ceased to be MPs, so no one can hold the confidence of the house of commons.
Could the King therefore appoint anyone? Appoint someone who holds the confidence of the house of lords? Confidence of the former MPs? Appoint the deputy prime minister? Could the King rule directly? Could he appoint a governor general for the UK who could then appoint a prime minister?
Would the deputy leader ([Oliver Dowden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Dowden)) take over in a caretaker role until a new leader was selected?
It'd be an awful look for the Conservatives whatever the case though.
Sure the Daily Star could find another lettuce. At this point, while we constitutionally should have someone running the country, would it actually make any difference?
He has truly fucked up royal with this D-Day disaster, surely cancelling out any tiny gains that he made from the debate, which was his only bright spot of the campaign so far. Add the resurgent Farage to that picture and it's looking nightmarish for the election.
And with all that in mind, it is hard to see how the Tories could possibly be in any of a worse state if someone else took over. However there just isn't time for this, and some modicum of stability and face recognition is really the only thing left that they might benefit from clinging on to.
They are truly up the creek without the paddle, but I don't think there's anything to be done now that will save the Tories from the almighty reckoning that really does seem to be coming for them.
No. Captain goes down with the ship. If he quits now he seals his fate as shitter than Truss. It's not about trying to win, it's about being able to show his face in social circles. Getting beaten is one thing, quitting would reduce him to a Pariah.
The problem I feel isn't Sunak (Although he is out of his depth and not right for the job) but it's just there's no heir apparent to the Conservative leadership and unless they want to appeal to the right wing of the party and try a hail mary with Nigel Farage they have no credible options.
Unless they can get Farage in to replace him - *today* - it won't save them from losing 200+ seats, so why bother? Let Sunak take the blame for the election and give the new leader a clean slate.
I'd like to see this. They'd still lose the election, and Farage would be slowly destroyed in opposition by a combination of exposure of his limited abilities and internal plotting.
Who would replace him? The Tories don’t have a Nigel Farage waiting in the wings to seamlessly take over mid-campaign - they’d need some big long process there isn’t time for and would make them look even more ridiculous. And ballot papers will be finalised today so it’s not like some last minute deal with Reform under new management is possible.
Even if they could no one is going to step in before the election. After the election when he resigns they will elect a new leader and blame everything on Sunak, Truss, Bojo etc and try to rebuild, assuming they win enough seats to not be finished.
Why should he go now? They will need a new leader anyway on 5th July as he will probably lose his seat.
But replace him with who? Not many people to choose from who would comfortably be voted back in. I suppose Larry the cat would be the only option
When we look back at this election, this will be a key point.
Sunak though seems to be so inept that I'm waiting on his next gaff.
I tend to suspect he already looking at going to the USA.
If the Tories want to be reduced to the third party, yes.
They would lose all their seats to the Libs and Reform.
Ed Davey and Nigel Farage are currently having a renaissance in the terms of the media.
Davey is suddenly getting great attention and the Farage machine is in full swing.
If the Tories didn't have a leader they'd be fucked.
Is the d day thing that big of a deal?
Just curious on some takes, I was never gonna vote for him anyway but it hasn't made me think worse of him, just kind of indifferent to it
Not a big deal, but absolutely incredible wasted opportunity to be seen hob nobbing with world leaders. It's like -1% when it should have been an easy +1%.
No. The longer he stays, the greater the Tory annihilation in the election. Still another month to go, that's plenty of time to bury them so deep, they never rise again.
Mordaunt is expected to lose her seat on July 4th.
There are a lot of senior Tories who are vulnerable at the moment and quite a few are under water in opinion polls.
Noone wants to be the first Prime Minister to be voted out since Arthur Balfour in 1906. Noone wants the poisoned chalice.
Brexit has hollowed out the Tories and although people will blame Sunak, the damage was caused by Boris Johnson reign of chaos.
No, he should 100% stay. He is completely sinking his party and there’s still a chance they could get someone who might be able to turn it around for them.
Let him stay and destroy his own party with this election, same philosophy I have with Trump over here.
I think their only hope is probably to shoehorn in Boris Johnson back in as a candidate in a safe seat, have Rishi step down as leader in his favour and do a deal with Nasty Nigel.
If they did that, I suspect they could limp in at just over 200 seats.
None of those things will happen. It's too late.
Absolutely not - he’s doing a great job of reducing the Tory vote. Not least because loads of Tory voters are massive racists who could never bring themselves to vote for a non-white PM. Something Braverman, Badenoch and Patel seem oblivious to.
Most people really don’t give a fuck about how long our current leader spends at a D Day event…
The ones of you that are already angry will get angrier ofcourse within the echo chamber of this subreddit…
It doesn't help that regardless of who wins as Rishi won't be there in a few months time. They'll call a leadership change either way.
How can you vote for a party with what will be an unknown leader. If they change leader now, it may actually help.
At this point they are stuffed either way, so it makes sense to keep Sunak in place to take the blame for the defeat, then come in with a new broom in opposition.
I'm interested to know how that would work in practice. Parliament has been dissolved so there are no Conservative MPs and no Parliamentary party, which are usually a big part of the process. They would surely need to design a new process and agree it with the party somehow before they could even remove him as leader.
Anyone see Ed Vaisey on Politics live. I know he is the Lords now , but i had to double check he is a Conservative the way he was talking about them as if they were nothing to do with him and ‘yes this leaving D-Day was a mistake’, yes the tax claim was misleading’, yes the national service thing is ridiculous….
Who would want to come in at this point? It's unlikely to change the trajectory of the election.
And could only be an interim leader because there's not enough time to go through any electoral process to find a new one (plus there are officially no MPs anymore so no-one to even nominate)
They’re stuck with him now, come hell or high water.
- From a practical standpoint, I don’t think they would have time to run a leadership contest.
- plus having some Tory infighting in the middle of the election campaign would be utter madness
- so would parachuting someone in as interim leader. Who’s going to want to vote for a party with no knowledge of who their leader (and thus potential PM) is?
- Also I don’t think the country would take kindly to the Tories having a 4th PM/Leader since the last election - all without having a say. It’s making a mockery of the whole process.
- Finally who would want to do it? All the predictions are that the Tories are on course for an absolute hammering. Changing leader would probably make that worse, and who wants to come in with that stain on their record? Better to let Sunak fall on his own sword and wait for the dust to settle before taking charge.
Who on earth is going to want to take the job
They are ultimately going to get crucified at he polls
No seat is safe, they realistically need to see who is left and then host a leadership election after at least they then know who has a job for the next parliament
I.e Penny Mordant will probably lose her seat the centre ground candidate is impossible to know right now as almost none of them look likely to survive
Yes it is too late, and it would be a nightmare having a leadership campaign in the middle of an election campaign. At best he could step down and appoint an interim leader, with a new leader to be chosen after the election, but that would be shambolic if voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is.
>would be a nightmare having a leadership campaign in the middle of an election campaign Funny though.
Tories attacking each other to become leader, and then telling us all why the person that they just said would be the wrong choice for the country is actually the best choice for PM.
Sounds like the Republican primary -> general election in the US.
And the democrats when it’s their turn for such stuff. The Hilary Clinton vs Bernie sanders debacle wasn’t great
This would be so entertaining
The 'labour have no plan" would be funny though
"Just look. Our plan is working."
I love it when they mention the plan. It has my I hysterics
It would be highly entertaining. But better than that it would highlight during a period of increased public awareness just how flawed our political class become. We sorely need to incentivise the people who run our country to do so for us, and not for themselves.
I'm imagining "It's A Knockout".
God I would love this so much
Give it Cameron till the end of the season?
Time to bring in Big Sam.
Classic destroy and exit. Money money money money.
Dare I say, a Dexit?
Lord Camerons wife?
Sam allardyce. Relegation specialist
Can't unless they scrap the party rules. The Tory Party leader needs to be a sitting MP. Interestingly, they'd probably have to scrap the rules anyway if there was a leadership competition during the election as there are currently no sitting MPs. They'd probably just crown a leader again like they did with Sunak.
Sunak was an obvious choice of leader last time, I'm not sure there's really an obvious candidates this time round though
He was still beaten by Truss in the membership vote - I think she still polls higher than him with party members.
Sunak would not have made it past the membership due to him being perceived as having wielded the knife on Boris and Truss who were both favourites with the grass roots. MPs had to collude to deny the membership a say in the leader of their party
Yeah, my point is that he was the obvious candidate to be nominated for PM by collusion. Who would the candidates be this time? I suspect Mormont, Braverman and Badenoch would all be interested, but would all be fairly useless (or worse), as well as being navigated around last time implies lack of suitability. Hunt might be more credible, and to a much lesser extent Cleverly but I'm not sure they'd be interested.
The membership would probably get behind Kemi and Penny however will all depend on who is left after the election. Hunt would be unlikely to receive membership support and he may not have any interest in the leadership after his previous defeat. Cleverly could be an option if he survives and certainly could win membership support as he has not managed to majorly offend in frontline roles.
Suella’a at the wheel…
Tell me how shit, does it feel
It could possibly save them from oblivion and result in a hung parliament if he offered a second chance vote to unbrexit. Would be him correcting his past mistake at least.
Lampard's a Tory and did such a good job as interim at Chelsea
Piggsy
To be fair, I don't think it would change voters expectations of the the next possible prime minister.
I can’t imagine ‘vote for us, we’ll tell you the plan after we choose a leader if we win’ going down very well without Jeremy Corbyn to be scared of.
"We need to deliver the plan... once we have come up with one."
Voting Tory = having no idea who the next PM will be.
Like we were expecting to get Liz Truss and the free market fundamentalists last time.
Also, it looks far worse. It reels of desperation
Who would ever volunteer to be the interim leader whose only job would be to oversee the biggest electoral defeat that the party has ever seen?
It should be Cameron, on the grounds that ultimately all the politics over the past eight years has grown out of his decision to hold a Brexit referendum. If anyone should carry the can for what has happened since then it should be him, IMO
It'd be fucking hilarious if he ends up leading the tories with his own cataclysm catching up with him.
Cameron?
If people seriously thought Cameron would be leader, I think Tory polling would be higher. However, it would be widely known that he's a placeholder until after the election, so the moderates that may be tempted back would be scared off by Braverman or Garage looming over his shoulder
Didn't he get enough humiliation on the 24th June 2016? Is he a masochist?
The fact that it would be absolutely definitely the worst possible thing to do is honestly what's making me think it might actually happen
> If voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is Imagine living in a world where we had had, I don't know, four consecutive prime ministers in recent memory who inherited the position without being voted for first. (not the same situation I know, but still leaves a unpleasant taste in the mouth)
Yep, that sounds terrible. But, can it get any worse? I’d suggest someone good with a sword would do better than Sunak? PM for PM. I think you see them pick up a couple of points. Sunak is gone at this point. Personally I hope he sticks it out, I want to witness the complete demise of the party that brought us austerity, Brexit, covid parties to name but a few highlights.
>that would be shambolic if voters don't even know who the possible prime minister is On the one hand yeah, people want to know who the PM would be (tho at this point I don't think it'll make a difference), but on the other hand we really need to change the voting system if people really are voting based on a leader. Because this isn't the US Presidency, and we aren't voting for a leader. We vote for constituency representatives.
No chance. If he resigned now that would ensure that they'd not only lose the election (which is almost a certainty regardless) but likely not even become the opposition. It would be way too easy of an attack line for Lib Dems and Reform to talk about how you dont even know who you're voting for. I imagine Farage would sweep up votes. He has to carry on, its all about damage limitation now which reflects why their policies are so focused on their key demographics.
Unless..... there's another Nigel switcheroo 😆
Or opens his coat to reveal...he's two child-sized Corbyns! ...imagine that for a long game. Achieves BREXIT, destroys Tories, returns to Islington and Tofu.
No way Farage agrees to take over the Tories now, he won't want the loss on his record. But currently he is who I'd put money on being our next next PM. I think hes in a really good position to benefit from any struggles Labour have in power.
>he is who I'd put money on being our next next PM I think even if Labour are quite mediocre I can't see a significant proportion of the population voting for Farage. I think moderate tories would rather vote for Starmer and no one left of centre right would ever vote for him. He represents a very vocal minority. Brexit was not the same as there have always been anti-EU voices across the political spectrum. A vote for Farage is a vote for pure right wing populism with no spine behind it whatsoever. I don't think he'd manage to get anywhere near a majority.
The fact that people are talking about Farage taking over the Tories shows how far too the right they’ve moved. Even directly after the referendum this would never have been seen as a possibility he was far too the right of the Conservatives at that point
lol this is LARPing
I dunno, he's 60, a heavy smoker and has had health issues in the past... he might be around in 2029 but beyond that? Can't see it.
Yeah and he sounded pretty COPDish on Question Time the other week.
What time do the candidates have to be locked in? If he doesn't do it by that time today, he can't. Also he's high ceiling/ low base kind of politician, I suspect the blue wall would immediately move to the Lib Dems, he might be able to play to the red wall though.
4pm. I’m sure there’s contingency plans in place if someone were to die or for some other reason become unable to stand at the election, but it’s surely too late to make a deliberate switch now.
4pm - so he's got about an hour and half.
Only about an hour left now. Get on with it!
That key demographic who they have just royally pissed off by disrespecting D-Day veterans.
Yeah but if he’s swanning off into the sunset with his millions, why would he give a fuck? He could just stick two fingers up to his party on the way out. Honestly I’m starting to think this farce deserves a biopic. Maybe get Dev Patel to play the hapless Sunak (probably too tall though), born privileged, makes ridiculous amounts of money as a banker, marries into one of the richest families in the world becoming even more rich, thinks he’s can do no wrong, becomes prime minister on a technicality, and then it all unravels as it becomes obvious he’s really not very good at anything and has been getting by on his privilege, connections and wealth his entire life. Though I’m sure the realisation never hits him. He’s still sure he’s brilliant.
I hate Sunak intensely and I think he's literally the embodiment of everything I loathe about wealthy background privileged rich kids failing upwards far beyond their experience or capability. I think he's a smarmy reptilian fraud. That said - I hope he stays as Tory leader for the election because he's likely to annihilate the tories as an electoral force for the rest of my life.
A leadership campaign during the election would cos them more I feel.
Your opening sentence describes the vast majority of conservatives MPs unfortunately
‘Rishi flicked his gaze from face to face, but there was no pity to be found. Knees buckled as he was pushed into his chair. ‘For a moment, he thought to beg. To cry. Plead for mercy. This couldn’t be happening. Not here. Not like this. ‘But the grey suits were remorseless. Someone leaned forward and thrust a plate onto the table. A plate containing a single, toasted bacon sandwich. ‘Rishi’s lip trembled. The order came: ‘Eat.’
Reads like a John Crace sketch
My Dad is a life long Tory that's terrified of, "the left," because of a lifetime of poisoning by the Daily Mail. He's chosen to simply not vote in this election. You're doing a great service to the UK Rishi, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Why would he go now? He is doing a _fantastic_ job. Keep it up Rish!
A lie a day keeps the voters away
I've been saying for weeks they should just give it to Vincent Kompany and be done with it...
Let Ole take the wheel.
Unless the Tories can get the ghost of Thatcher to be leader again they've got no chance. Changing leader, in the middle of an election, would definitely lose them more votes, though I guess an argument could be made that they might actually lose less votes changing leader than letting Sunak and his political instincts run riot for the next 4 weeks.
>Unless the Tories can get the ghost of Thatcher to be leader again they've got no chance. They would have pulled off a closer result with Boris.
The way they're going I think They might have got better results bringing back Liz Truss
Lettuce be honest, cos we all know the salad vegetable would have done better at avoiding the iceberg.
I always forget about Liz. Neither Boris or Liz would have messed up as badly as Sunak just has with his D Day snub.
Tbh I reckon the Tory party are looking at that lettuce and thinking 'we chose the wrong challenger to Liz as her replacement'
Well in any case Johnson wouldn't have left because he'd have been in his element hob nobbing with heads of state at the event.
Before ditching his security and heading off to Italy to party obvs
Maybe but Boris stood down before the recall petition could be submitted. Chances are he would not have been an MP for this election whatever happened.
*They would have pulled off a closer result with Boris.* They'd still lose though. That's why he's not interested.
Thatcher would look at the current bunch and tell them to get stuffed, over both their ideologies and their incompetence.
The Ghost of Thatcher would lose all votes in Scotland, which is actually the one area that Rishi might pickup some votes (from SNP collapse).
Absolutely not. That will deprive us of many, many hilarious moments of incompetence between now and the election.
Yeah, I need those memes!
I am both fascinated by what is to come but also praying for it to be over already.
It is madness to change leaders. Change Sunak with Mordaunt or Badenoch, and the Tories end up in a situation where the new leader is associated with a massive defeat. Their reputation is then damaged. Rather than wasting talent, they should let Sunak take the blame and replace him after the election. It isn't Sunak making gaffes or not attending the D-Day commemorations that have meant he has lost this election. It is partygate and the mini-budget that are to blame. Both of these are out of Sunak's control. He can't do much about them, other than to distance himself from Johnson and Truss (which he hasn't done). Replacing the leader doesn't change a thing.
*It is partygate and the mini-budget that are to blame. Both of these are out of Sunak's control.* Wasn't he fined for Partygate?
He was, but in one of the very few (and likely competely unintentional) savy political moves from Sunak he managed to play it off as being "ambushed with cake that one time" as compared to BoJo throwing massive ragers every night. Given that he's both teetotal and a massive dweeb, this is the one time I'm willing to believe that he was keeping away from the No. 10 parties as much as he feasibly could.
And yet there were so many going on even he couldn't avoid them all!
Yes. But a lot of people don't actually know that. They just think it was Johnson. If anything that proves the point even more because there really is nothing he can do about it regarding his own attendance there.
I think half the problem is the fine was next to nothing when there were people up and down the country getting fined thousands and you have someone with deep pockets fined £50
Still waiting for Starmer (or anyone) to bring up Rishi's Partygate fine in a debate and then when he apologises publicly again just ram the knife in again by reminding the public of the funerals we weren't allowed to go to, the births we were not allowed to go to, the visits to care homes where all we could do was wave through a window, the fact we weren't allowed more than 5 miles from our house, the fines for sitting down on park benches, the party the night before the Duke's funeral where even the Queen sat by herself with a facemask on. And how that was all Tories, and Rishi was a part of all that. And then moving quickly on before Sunak can mention furlough again
I didn’t know that myself, not something you hear about, which is odd considering it was the reason Johnson left.
The word talent is doing a lot of work here
It's the biggest lie since Sunak's £2000 Labour tax increase.
> Rather than wasting talent, they should let Sunak take the blame and replace him after the election. That is absolutely the strategy. Notice how very few senior Tories are getting involved in the campaign. Sunak barely even mentions them. Never any talk about "my team" or "my party". It is all "I will do this" or "I have done this". The plan is for him to be the fall guy, and he's accepted that himself.
This analysis aligns with poll tracking over the last few years, with Labour overtaking the Tories over Partygate as an inflection point and larger gains over the mini-budget.
Not to mention that Morduant looks like she could easily lose her seat. But it would be great for her, PM's pension for life about £130,000 per year for her office. So that she can deal with matters relating to her time as PM, such as attending Remberance Day and D-Day memorials. As well as dealing with various correspondence.
Big stretch referring to Badenoch as "talent"
If there's anything I've learned about this country over the last fourteen years, it's that any Tory leader could go so far as to eat a baby on live television and at least a third of the nation would still vote for them. Nobody gave a damn about the attacks on large families, the unemployed and the disabled that came under Cameron. Even fewer people gave a damn about Home Secretaries like Theresa May, Priti Patel and Suella Braverman eroding our civil liberties. Only catastrophic fuck ups like Partygate and Kwasi Kwarteng's mini budget nuking the UK economy are giving Keir Starmer a chance. Somehow I get the feeling this D-Day gaffe is being overblown and it's not going to collapse Tory support, as much as I think that this is a scheduling conflict that should have been avoided in the first place. Labour would have been utterly eviscerated for doing the same but that's because our country is pretty damn right wing and holds the left to double standards visible from space. The only reason I think this may have a slim chance of hurting Rishi's polling further is that the older generations are also pretty damn patriotic. If there's one thing you should never do in front of a British pensioner, it's disrespecting the sacrifices our countrymen made in World War 2.
> at least a third of the nation would still vote for them Tories are struggling to hit 20%. There's a serious chance they get less than a fifth of the vote, from the ~2/3rds who turn out to vote, from those eligible to vote in the first place. That diehard tory bloc is closer to a tenth of the nation.
Isn't that always the way though? Until the middle class feel it in the pocket, nothing changes
Think it will probably hurt the Tories by solidifying some of those voters wavering between Conservative and Reform, as they're the very demographic likely to be most offended by a show of disrespect to veterans. Given the Tories strategy over the last decade has been 'appear more right wing to stop voters going to UKIP/Brexit Party/Reform', this was about one of the worst manoeuvres Sunak could have made at a time when he's not courting the centre, has given up even trying to appeal to the left, and is hoping to monopolise the right. Particularly on the week Farage returns, and the day before Farage is in a debate alongside the Tory leadership hopeful who represents Portsmouth. Not like Mordaunt's going to risk pissing off the military, and not an easy one for her to defend her leader on. If I were cynical, it seems like the best reason for doing it is to try and hurt Mordaunt's leadership chances - either she defends the indefensible and annoys her constituents, or shows party disloyalty during an election campaign. It's about all I've got, as there's literally no good reason for him to have done it
Even without these things even if they weren't such obvious tea leafs even if it wasn't for immigration (I like immigration being one) the fact that people have less money in their pocket than before the Tories came in 14 years ago, a complete break with the last 200 years surely dooms them.
I agree but they should stuck him in a fridge until the election
I heartily recommend the Tories to have *yet another* leadership contest in the coming weeks because nothing says ‘strong and stable’ while claiming the opposition will be chaos, more clearly than publicly shitting your pants, *again*.
Wait it was always just projection? Always has been...
No. I want to watch him and his Tories get absolutely and utterly crushed on July 4th.
It would be perfect if mordont announced at the party debate she is now the leader, just to overshadow everyone else there
Do you know, I was wondering to myself the other day: what if Mordaunt used [the big TV debate tonight](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c877v0e86vko) to actually attack her own leader? She's got nothing to lose. Rishi has less than a month, now, of being Prime Minister / of being leader of the Conservative Party. If Penny is pinned into spending her whole evening defending the indefensible, what's the point? There's lots of good reasons to throw Rishi under the bus this evening. There are no good reasons to support him.
She won't attack him, but she also won't put any effort into defending him. The debate for Mordaunt is all about burnishing her own personal image ahead of a tough fight to keep her seat, then Tory leadership if she makes it that far. She won't want to come across as a snake, but she's not going to put herself in the Sunak firing line either.
I agree with everything you've said. Lots of good calls there.
The public don't like a backstabber. Hell that's half of sunaks problem.
Well farage is going to be there so it may not
Well isn’t he chief executive or el presidente of something - not leader of a party? :-)
While I agree with most that it's unlikely they'd change the leader mid campaign it's certainly interesting that Penny Mordaunt is taking part in the next TV debate instead of Oliver Dowden. Every other party is using either their party leader or deputy leader. If she were to over perform and result in a decent +% to the Tory vote it's not impossible that she could take the reigns. I think that right now most Tories are accepting they have lost so any small recovery would be seen as a positive even if they still lose the election.
I think she's likely doing it because a good performance by her could be enough to save her seat. She's got a reasonable level of personal approval with her constituents and in polls in her constituency she performs better against Labour than a hypothetical generic Tory candidate. She's sitting very much in the margin of error at the moment, so even a 1 or 2% boost could give her a more a stronger personal position. And she's going to be fully aware that the future of the Tory party depends entirely on who survives the election. If she's the only big name that keeps their seat, she'll be a shoe in for leader and can pull the party back towards the less extreme right.
And what's most likely to tank her personal approval with her constituents? Defending the PM missing the D-Day celebrations. Rishi sure is doing well at destroying every vestige of semi-competence in the party
Agreed, I'm very interested to see how she steps around the issue.
#whereintheworldisOliver
If there’s any justice Sunak will not only preside over the complete annihilation of the Tory Party but he’ll also be humiliated by losing his seat. I’ve just listened to his apology and it was pathetic beyond measure. FFS somebody take that shovel off him and hit him with it.
Did you hear him say just now that it's wrong for his opponents to politicise his decision to leave the commemoration in order to do a campaign interview? Absolutely pathetic...
A bigger gaffe than leaving early; the non-apology that he tried to turn into an attack.
If they replaced Sunak now, the new leader would beat Liz Truss to become the UK's shortest serving prime minister.
Like it or lump it the conservatives are stuck with Sunak. Honestly I hope he keeps making these unforced errors and “mistakes” as he called them.
Norwich are never going to win the league, but they still keep on turning up every week. The pricks
If he does he has to do it before 4pm.
You’re right about that. He’ll do it at half 4 won’t he?
Not true, there’s nothing on the ballot about Sunak being leader
Offending D Day veterans sounds like a Thick of It script, it’s an absolute nightmare scenario for the Conservative Party trying to fend off Reform. The fact that Sunak and his team didn’t see an issue with leaving early just shows a staggering level of political incompetence.
I think he should stay and take responsibility for his useless government, and his piss poor decisions.
God no! It’s heading for wipeout territory and the best amount of Tory MP’s is 0
His role now is to be the fall guy. They're going to try to pin everything on this, but the polls are quite clear that the Tory's lead was lost during the Owen Paterson scandal, their polling was demolished by Partygate, then turned into a catastrophic historic loss by Liz Truss. Sunak failed to turn things round from this point, but the whole sorry mess needs to be hung around their necks (*and* the neck of Farage), never mind what came before. From the deregulation of the banking system in the 1980s leading to the financial crash, ideological privatisations in the 1980s leading to sewage in the rivers, seas, beaches and drinking water, austerity strangulating the recovery and leading to the collapse of public services and ultimately costing us more through short-termist dumb false economy, Brexit leading to poorer regulations, stunted growth, exacerbating the cost of living crisis, the labour shortage and increased immigration without paying for the services or housing to make that work - it *all* needs to be hung around *all* their necks. Not just Sunak's.
Hit the nail on the head with this post!
Well put
Mighty bold of you to assume that there is anyone left who wants to lead this shower of shit.
Politically it's too late. It would basically set a bonfire under an already damaged Conservative election strategy. Any new party leader would also presumably have to be signed up to campaign on the existing manifesto because that's due to be released in a matter of weeks, so they wouldn't be able to campaign on a different base than Sunak. I fully expect the Conservatives to drop in the letters to the 1922 Committee about 30 seconds after the General Election results come in.
No. My belief is that he doesn't think he can win but could keep Tory losses to less than half of their seats, giving them a base to recover. If he leaves now, then reform will going sweep through anywhere that isn't won by Labour. Sidenote: he probably called the election knowing there was no longer any hope of recovery and didn't want to hang on until Christmas. IIRC, Jim Callaghan had a similar view in the late 70s, but events took hold before he could act.
He’s going in less than a month anyway 🤷♀️
Is it possible under our unwritten constitution and parliamentary rules for a government to just concede? I imagine not, but a constitutional expect may be aware of some arcane precedent.
"Earlier today, I met with his majesty, the King, to request permission to formally dissolve the Conservative party"
If the elections been called and I think legally we have to have one, their conceding would just be giving up on campaigning or mass step downs and switches to reform. There is still weeks of "campaign" ahead so who knows what insanity is in store.
It will be interesting to see what Mordaunt does in the debate tonight now that Sunak has noosed his own neck.
Count how many times she says ‘he has admitted it was a mistake and apologised’ and something something Starmer supported Corbyn who would have surrendered the country to the Russians.
"Corbyn, corbyn, £2000, nuclear deterrent, already apologised, what have Labour done about it..." "I only asked your name"
Assuming she makes it through this election Mordaunt was a likely future leader. I expect this debate was her big chance to 1) shore up support to escape personal defeat and 2) position herself as a leader. Now she’ll be the face of this Sunak D Day gaffe.
Has to be his bacon sarnie moment. I cannot see anyone coming back from this. Reform smell blood. Could be a Portillo moment him losing his seat. I'm fairly aroused typing that like.. Ngl. Election night gonna be swell.
I'm curious what would happen if Sunak also resigned as prime minister at the same time. I think it would trigger a constitutional crisis. Usually the King appoints whomever holds the confidence of the house of commons. But as of last Thursday all of the MPs ceased to be MPs, so no one can hold the confidence of the house of commons. Could the King therefore appoint anyone? Appoint someone who holds the confidence of the house of lords? Confidence of the former MPs? Appoint the deputy prime minister? Could the King rule directly? Could he appoint a governor general for the UK who could then appoint a prime minister?
Would the deputy leader ([Oliver Dowden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Dowden)) take over in a caretaker role until a new leader was selected? It'd be an awful look for the Conservatives whatever the case though.
Sure the Daily Star could find another lettuce. At this point, while we constitutionally should have someone running the country, would it actually make any difference?
He has truly fucked up royal with this D-Day disaster, surely cancelling out any tiny gains that he made from the debate, which was his only bright spot of the campaign so far. Add the resurgent Farage to that picture and it's looking nightmarish for the election. And with all that in mind, it is hard to see how the Tories could possibly be in any of a worse state if someone else took over. However there just isn't time for this, and some modicum of stability and face recognition is really the only thing left that they might benefit from clinging on to. They are truly up the creek without the paddle, but I don't think there's anything to be done now that will save the Tories from the almighty reckoning that really does seem to be coming for them.
Give it Giggsy ‘til the end of the election season
This d-day gaffe has completely finished the Conservative Party. He should resign.
No. Captain goes down with the ship. If he quits now he seals his fate as shitter than Truss. It's not about trying to win, it's about being able to show his face in social circles. Getting beaten is one thing, quitting would reduce him to a Pariah.
The problem I feel isn't Sunak (Although he is out of his depth and not right for the job) but it's just there's no heir apparent to the Conservative leadership and unless they want to appeal to the right wing of the party and try a hail mary with Nigel Farage they have no credible options.
No, the party needs someone to be the eventual fall guy for the loss. He'll be rewarded and then taken care of eventually.
What?! No! He’s clearly a Labour plant working to destroy the Conservative Party, let him get on with his assignment.
I think it'd be highly inappropriate to leave early at this stage. So given his track record, he probably will.
It doesn't work like that.. the democratic process allows the citizens to tell him to fcuk off!
Unless they can get Farage in to replace him - *today* - it won't save them from losing 200+ seats, so why bother? Let Sunak take the blame for the election and give the new leader a clean slate.
I'd like to see this. They'd still lose the election, and Farage would be slowly destroyed in opposition by a combination of exposure of his limited abilities and internal plotting.
Who would replace him? The Tories don’t have a Nigel Farage waiting in the wings to seamlessly take over mid-campaign - they’d need some big long process there isn’t time for and would make them look even more ridiculous. And ballot papers will be finalised today so it’s not like some last minute deal with Reform under new management is possible.
Even if they could no one is going to step in before the election. After the election when he resigns they will elect a new leader and blame everything on Sunak, Truss, Bojo etc and try to rebuild, assuming they win enough seats to not be finished.
The only way i could see them making this work would be to drag Boris out of whatever cave he is hiding in. Even at that it wouldn't change anything.
Why should he go now? They will need a new leader anyway on 5th July as he will probably lose his seat. But replace him with who? Not many people to choose from who would comfortably be voted back in. I suppose Larry the cat would be the only option
When we look back at this election, this will be a key point. Sunak though seems to be so inept that I'm waiting on his next gaff. I tend to suspect he already looking at going to the USA.
If the Tories want to be reduced to the third party, yes. They would lose all their seats to the Libs and Reform. Ed Davey and Nigel Farage are currently having a renaissance in the terms of the media. Davey is suddenly getting great attention and the Farage machine is in full swing. If the Tories didn't have a leader they'd be fucked.
No, this is fun, and it's only a few more weeks
Yes, the party should kick him out. He won't leave voluntarily.
Is the d day thing that big of a deal? Just curious on some takes, I was never gonna vote for him anyway but it hasn't made me think worse of him, just kind of indifferent to it
Not a big deal, but absolutely incredible wasted opportunity to be seen hob nobbing with world leaders. It's like -1% when it should have been an easy +1%.
It's 4 weeks. Even if he wanted to he can't leave now.
No. The longer he stays, the greater the Tory annihilation in the election. Still another month to go, that's plenty of time to bury them so deep, they never rise again.
I would why be the pm of little britain. I would rather be a billionaire on a sunny beach!
Nah. He should limp on, weakly wafting his party to oblivion
Mordaunt is expected to lose her seat on July 4th. There are a lot of senior Tories who are vulnerable at the moment and quite a few are under water in opinion polls. Noone wants to be the first Prime Minister to be voted out since Arthur Balfour in 1906. Noone wants the poisoned chalice. Brexit has hollowed out the Tories and although people will blame Sunak, the damage was caused by Boris Johnson reign of chaos.
For starters there are no members of the parliamentary party to send in letters.
No, he should 100% stay. He is completely sinking his party and there’s still a chance they could get someone who might be able to turn it around for them. Let him stay and destroy his own party with this election, same philosophy I have with Trump over here.
I think their only hope is probably to shoehorn in Boris Johnson back in as a candidate in a safe seat, have Rishi step down as leader in his favour and do a deal with Nasty Nigel. If they did that, I suspect they could limp in at just over 200 seats. None of those things will happen. It's too late.
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They never voted on his suspension because he'd already resigned. They'd have to re-initiate disciplinary proceedings.
Absolutely not - he’s doing a great job of reducing the Tory vote. Not least because loads of Tory voters are massive racists who could never bring themselves to vote for a non-white PM. Something Braverman, Badenoch and Patel seem oblivious to.
Most people really don’t give a fuck about how long our current leader spends at a D Day event… The ones of you that are already angry will get angrier ofcourse within the echo chamber of this subreddit…
It doesn't help that regardless of who wins as Rishi won't be there in a few months time. They'll call a leadership change either way. How can you vote for a party with what will be an unknown leader. If they change leader now, it may actually help.
At this point they are stuffed either way, so it makes sense to keep Sunak in place to take the blame for the defeat, then come in with a new broom in opposition.
Assuming they \_are\_ in opposition of course
I'm interested to know how that would work in practice. Parliament has been dissolved so there are no Conservative MPs and no Parliamentary party, which are usually a big part of the process. They would surely need to design a new process and agree it with the party somehow before they could even remove him as leader.
Anyone see Ed Vaisey on Politics live. I know he is the Lords now , but i had to double check he is a Conservative the way he was talking about them as if they were nothing to do with him and ‘yes this leaving D-Day was a mistake’, yes the tax claim was misleading’, yes the national service thing is ridiculous….
Who would want to come in at this point? It's unlikely to change the trajectory of the election. And could only be an interim leader because there's not enough time to go through any electoral process to find a new one (plus there are officially no MPs anymore so no-one to even nominate)
They’re stuck with him now, come hell or high water. - From a practical standpoint, I don’t think they would have time to run a leadership contest. - plus having some Tory infighting in the middle of the election campaign would be utter madness - so would parachuting someone in as interim leader. Who’s going to want to vote for a party with no knowledge of who their leader (and thus potential PM) is? - Also I don’t think the country would take kindly to the Tories having a 4th PM/Leader since the last election - all without having a say. It’s making a mockery of the whole process. - Finally who would want to do it? All the predictions are that the Tories are on course for an absolute hammering. Changing leader would probably make that worse, and who wants to come in with that stain on their record? Better to let Sunak fall on his own sword and wait for the dust to settle before taking charge.
Who on earth is going to want to take the job They are ultimately going to get crucified at he polls No seat is safe, they realistically need to see who is left and then host a leadership election after at least they then know who has a job for the next parliament I.e Penny Mordant will probably lose her seat the centre ground candidate is impossible to know right now as almost none of them look likely to survive
Agent of chaos you are, sounds like a plan.
I'm jist waiting for close of nominations and finding out that he fucked up his submission paperwork.