It’s 7am, Friday 5 July, and the recriminations have begun. The Tories have suffered their worst defeat in history – the knives are out. Losing Tory candidates are taking to the airwaves to blame Rishi Sunak, CCHQ, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson and more.
It says something about the state of play in the election that with just under a fortnight to go onto polling day, it is this scenario being talked about in the party, rather than whether the gap between the Tories and Labour will narrow.
“It’s very tough at the moment,” says a minister bracing for defeat on election night. Former government aides have been struck by the messages they have received from Tory candidates asking them to come and help campaign.
“A lot of ministers in really safe seats are now asking for friends to give up time to campaign. It suggests majorities of over 20,000 could even go,” explains a former special adviser. “Every time we think we can catch a break, new shit hits the fan,” says a campaign figure of the current mood.
Depending which pollster’s MRP you pick, Rishi Sunak could even lose his Yorkshire seat. That is viewed by the Tory campaign as unlikely – but were it to come to pass it would in a way be one of the less impactful outcomes. No one in the party believes Sunak will lead the party for much longer. The question instead being asked by ministers is who will be left to fight it out to be his successor.
This is what Tories scour the MRP polls for. Among those who could find their ambitions cut down to size by the electorate are Robert Jenrick, Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps. Even Suella Braverman and Liz Truss could feel some pain if anti-Tory tactical voting is high.
While who will survive is in flux, the debate about how the party should proceed is in full swing. Already some Tory MPs are warning that the party should not jump head first into a leadership campaign if – as currently expected – it suffers its worst defeat in history.
The party could do all the parliamentary rounds pre-recess and spend summer in a long membership hustings tour before installing a new leader in time for conference. But some worry what this would bring. “Things could get very ugly very quickly,” warns a former cabinet minister. “I worry if we pick immediately, it will be vicious, and the winner could be the wrong one.”
It means there is already talk of an interim or caretaker leader – who could use their experience to lead the party while it studies its defeat and debates a future direction. Only as tends to be the case in today’s Tories, no one can agree who is best placed to do this. Some suggest Sunak’s deputy Oliver Dowden – however, given he was instrumental in arguing for a summer election that most of the party see as a catastrophic mistake, his card is somewhat marked.
Then there is Priti Patel, whose standing has improved over the past year, and who is also being discussed as a potential interim solution as well as a candidate for the longer term.
While she was once seen as the preserve of the right of the party, the fact she has spoken supportively of Sunak when others like Suella Braverman have critiqued him means some in the middle believe she has the potential to be a unifier.
Yet there are doubts – top of the list being her proximity to Boris Johnson. For while the bookies’ have Kemi Badenoch as the current favourite to take over as permanent leader – she stands a decent chance so long as her direct style doesn’t isolate too many colleagues – there are two names outside the current parliamentary party that repeatedly come up in leadership discussions: Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
As I previously reported in this paper, the Nigel Farage question will dominate the Tory leadership contest: should he be in or out of the Conservative Party?
The worse the result, the more opportunity for Farage. While the Reform leader has dismissed the idea he wants to join the Tories, he previously told me he takes inspiration from the 1993 Canadian wipeout when the mainstream Conservative Party had a catastrophic loss that led to the two right-wing parties – the other being called Reform – coming together.
Potential leaders are divided on the Farage question. Braverman would welcome him; Badenoch would not. Patel has not said publicly either way – although some suggest she could be sceptical.
But while Patel might not roll out the red carpet for Farage, could she pave the way for a Johnson return? Allies of Boris Johnson are once again talking up a comeback. “He has unfinished business,” says a former colleague. But he lacks a seat, and a seat was never going to be offered when Sunak was PM. A new leader could ease that process.
There are some in the Conservative Party who believe this should happen – that the past two years have shown things were better when he was around. But others say his premiership was the beginning of the end for the party, and when their problems began and the seeds of discontent were sown. When I followed candidates on the campaign trail in Surrey this week, several voters brought up Partygate as the reason they would no longer vote Tory, despite doing so in 2019.
Johnson has also not helped himself this week. There was hope among some candidates that he would come out campaigning. The former prime minister instead recorded a few videos for candidates and then went on holiday. It’s a sharp contrast to his predecessors. Both David Cameron and Theresa May have been out this week helping on the campaign. Whether it would make a huge difference or not, candidates would be grateful for Johnson’s time. It means they may not forget his absence when picking how to proceed after the election.
The early hours of 5 July look to be some of the bloodiest to date for the Conservative Party. The question is whether it can hold its nerve and think clearly when picking a new leader and direction.
The alternative is an immediate return to Tory civil war – the current polls show just how toxic such infighting can be.