Category Archives: conservative party

Tory Gloom Deepens After Rishi Sunak’s Summer Of Discontent

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It wasn’t supposed to be like this for Rishi Sunak.

At the start of the year and after just two months in the job, he was still enjoying life as prime minister.

At a drinks reception for journalists shortly before Christmas, he had joked about already outlasting Liz Truss in No.10, while poking fun at his own diminutive stature.

“We’ve gone from the shortest-serving prime minister to the shortest prime minister,” he quipped.

When parliament returned at the start of January, he felt emboldened to make five promises on which he said voters should judge his government.

“No tricks, no ambiguity – we’re either delivering for you or we’re not,” Sunak declared.

“We will rebuild trust in politics through action, or not at all. So, I ask you to judge us on the effort we put in and the results we achieve.”

As MPs return to Westminster on Monday, the optimism of those early days has given way to cynicism and a growing sense of resignation among many Tory MPs that the party is heading for inevitable defeat at the next election.

This is despite a summer of frenetic government activity which was aimed at getting the Tories back on the front foot and eating into Labour’s huge poll lead.

Whole weeks were given over to specific topics, such as the NHS and crime, with a series of announcements rolled out in an attempt to seize the news agenda.

However, the failure of this strategy was typified by “small boats week”, which was overshadowed by Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson telling migrants to “fuck off”, the number of asylum seekers crossing the channel hitting 100,000 and the Bibby Stockholm barge being evacuated after legionella was found in the water.

The end result has been, if anything, a hardening of Labour’s poll lead.

In a further blow to the prime minister, his communications director, Amber de Botton, surprisingly quit yesterday after less than a year in the job.

“We’re just going to have a very tough year,” one former cabinet minister told HuffPost UK.

“A lot of our MPs, the ones who were elected after 2010, are just not accustomed to it. We’ve been 20 points behind for a long time and the reality is that at least 100 of them are going at the next election, and possibly 200. We could be down to just 150 MPs.”

A veteran Tory backbencher said many of his colleagues are in for a rude awakening when they start properly engaging with the electorate.

“Judging by the MPs’ WhatsApp groups, a lot of them have spent the summer not campaigning at all,” he said.

“When they wake up and go to people’s doors and they say they’re not going to vote for them, that’ll be a reality check. That’s when things will get quite turbulent for the PM.”

Also looming on the horizon is the Mid-Bedfordshire by-election, which could take place the day after the Tories’ annual conference closes in Manchester.

Although the Conservatives hold the seat with a majority of nearly 25,000, the controversy surrounding the departure of its former MP Nadine Dorries, allied to the unpopularity of the government, means it is vulnerable.

Labour and the Lib Dems both fancy their chances, raising Tory hopes that they could split the vote and let their candidate, Festus Akinbusoye, come through the middle to win.

One senior party figure who visited the seat last week said: “Labour and the Lib Dems are knocking hell out of each other.

“The reception on the doorsteps was strikingly positive for Festus, just because they all recognised him. But it will get more difficult for him once the by-election campaign properly starts.”

Sunak’s decision to delay his long-anticipated cabinet reshuffle until later in the year has also dismayed many Tories, who believe it is a sign of the PM’s weakness.

He was forced into a mini shake-up on Thursday by the resignation of defence secretary Ben Wallace, but the decision to replace him with Grant Shapps just added to the sense of gloom in the Tory ranks.

“It’s completely lacking any inspiration – or maybe Grant was simply the only one who answered his phone,” said one unhappy aide.

“It just feels a bit like we’ve given up. The crime week announcement that we expect the police to solve crime cemented it for me. It’s a bit like telling teachers to teach kids – no shit Sherlock.”

Sunak’s malaise was summed up by polling by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for the Politico website which showed that two-thirds of voters believe Sunak has achieved either “nothing at all” or only “a slight amount”.

One veteran Tory told HuffPost UK: “My view is that because inflation hasn’t come down enough and because the NHS strikes are continuing, there is a sense among voters that there is a lack of progress.

“The good news is that inflation has actually fallen down the list of voters’ priorities recently, but the bad news is that the NHS and climate change have moved up, which doesn’t help us help at all.”

As the first anniversary of Sunak’s time in No.10 approaches, there is little to suggest he will turn around the Tories fortunes in time for next year’s general election.

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‘We Have Failed’: Lee Anderson Admits Tory Government Migration Chaos

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Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson has admitted his party has “failed” to stop migrants crossing the Channel in small boats, despite Rishi Sunak’s pledge to end the journeys.

He said the situation was now “out of control” and that the Conservative government was to blame.

Anderson’s comments, in an interview with Nigel Farage on GB News, followed the row over his claim that migrants who do not want to board the Bibby Stockholm barge in Dorset should “fuck off back to France”.

He said: “I’m not going to sit here and make excuses to anyone. This is out of control.

“We’re in power at the moment, I’m the deputy chair of the Conservative Party, we’re in government and we have failed on this – there’s no doubt about it.

“We’ve said we’re going to fix it, it is a failure.”

Anderson insisted the Tories had policies in place to tackle the issue, but he added: “I know it’s a bit hard for the British public at the moment to actually understand what we’re trying to do with the Rwanda flights and the Illegal Migration Bill and it seems very slow, it’s cumbersome.

“We’re up against it Nigel, let’s be honest. We’ve got the lefty lawyers, we’ve got the human rights campaigners, we’ve got the charities – everything’s against us, but I’m not making excuses.”

His comments are a further blow to Sunak in a week that was meant to showcase the government’s attempts to stop the boats.

Instead, they have been forced to deny plans to deport migrants to Ascension Island, while they also face legal challenges over the Bibby Stockholm, which has been dubbed a “quasi-prison” by opponents.

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Tory Civil War Erupts As Rishi Sunak Is Urged To Delay Petrol Car Ban

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A Tory civil war has erupted after dozens of the party’s MPs and peers called on Rishi Sunak to delay the ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars.

Under the policy, drivers will be unable to buy the vehicles from 2030.

Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, the prime minister said: “The 2030 target has been our policy for a long time and continues to be – we are not considering a delay to that date.”

But in a letter to the PM, 45 Tory MPs and peers – including former members of the cabinet – urged him to think again.

It said: “You rightly put on record this week that net zero is important, but you do not want to add to consumers’ bills and that measures need to be ‘proportionate and pragmatic’.

“We believe the proposed ban on petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 would risk that entire approach and do grave harm to the economy.”

They said Sunak should follow the EU’s lead by delaying the ban until 2035.

“The future for this country is in imposing fewer burdens and being more lightly regulated than the EU, not in unilaterally imposing additional job-destroying burdens to meet and unnecessary and unworkable deadline,” the letter said.

Sunak hinted at rowing back on the government’s environmental commitments in the wake of the recent Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.

The Tories managed to hang on to Boris Johnson’s old seat by campaigning against opposing the expansion of London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), which will see drivers of old cars charged £12.50 a day.

The letter said that showed net zero policies which cost voters’ money “are deeply unpopular”.

The MPs and peers added: “We urge you to review this policy to make sure car ownership remains affordable and manufacturers are protected.

“A move to 2035 to match competitor countries such as the EU bloc and the USA would seem entirely sensible.”

The letter’s signatories include Jacob Rees-Mogg, David Davis, Esther McVey and Lord Frost.

Sunak has also been attacked by environmental groups for “watering down” his environmental commitments.

He said last week that he would not introduce any policies that led to “more hassle and more costs” in people’s lives.

Dozens of groups, including Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace UK, the National Trust, RPSCA and RSPB, have written to the PM warning him not to use the environment as “a political football”.

They said: “Acting on climate change needs to be done fairly, but that is best done by delivering well-designed policy, backed up with public and private finance, and by working hand-in-hand with industry and communities. There is no public mandate for a delay.

“It is therefore with deep alarm that we have read reports over the last few weeks of your government considering watering down its commitments on almost every front of environmental policy.”

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Labour Blame Sadiq Khan’s ULEZ Scheme For Failing To Win Boris Johnson’s Old Seat

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The Labour mayor of London’s decision to expand the Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) to cover the whole of the capital dominated the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election.

Speaking shortly after the result was announced, shadow justice secretary Steve Reed suggested Khan should consider ditching the ULEZ expansion – which is due to kick in next month – in light of the result.

He told the PA news agency: “I think the winning Conservative candidate just said it, didn’t he? He said that if it wasn’t for ULEZ, he believes Labour would have won this by-election.

“Clearly, it did resonate with a lot of people. They didn’t like the fact that ULEZ was going to cost people more to drive around at a time when there’s a cost-of-living crisis going on. That’s exactly what [Labour candidate] Danny Beales was saying all the way through the campaign.

“But I think when the voters speak, any party that seeks to govern has to listen. So that’s what Labour will be doing after this.”

A Labour source told HuffPost UK: “If Uxbridge helps us junk more crap then good.”

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Johnny Mercer Slammed Over ‘Inbetweeners’ Jibe At New Labour MP

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Johnny Mercer has been criticised after launching an extraordinary attack on Labour’s newest MP.

The Tory minister compared Keir Mather to a character from hit comedy The Inbetweeners after his stunning victory in Selby and Ainsty.

He also suggested MPs should have raised a family before standing for parliament.

Mather, who is 25, overturned a 20,000 Tory majority in the seat to pull off the historic win.

But on Sky News afterwards, Mercer suggested the new MP was too inexperienced to be in parliament.

He also accused Mather of robotically “parroting” Labour lines because he does not have enough life experience.

He said: “I think it’s always good to get new people in politics. I think we mustn’t become a repeat of the Inbetweeners. You’ve got to have people who have actually done stuff.

“This guy has been at Oxford University more than he’s been in a job. You put a chip in him there and he just repeats Labour lines.

“The problem is people have had enough of that, right? They want people who are authentic, people who have worked in that constituency, who understand what life is like – to live, work and raise a family in communities like there’s.

“I’m afraid I don’t agree with this style of politics. It’s exactly why people like me couldn’t vote in the 2015 election, because you’ve got people with nothing to do with the constituency just dropped in, put a chip in them and they’ll start parroting Labour Party politics.”

Keir Mather celebrates winning with 16,456 votes the Selby and Ainsty by-election.
Keir Mather celebrates winning with 16,456 votes the Selby and Ainsty by-election.

Ian Forsyth via Getty Images

A Labour source told HuffPost UK: “Johnny Mercer’s response to a young gay man being elected was to make fun of his appearance and criticise him for not having raised a family. The true face of the Tory Party.”

Asked about his relative inexperience on Sky News, Mather said: “I don’t think people mind a candidate with a bit of energy and determination.

I’m a taxpayer too, I feel the pressures as much as anybody else. I grew up in a rural village, very similar to the ones across Selby and Ainsty, so I do also know what it’s like to struggle to get that GP appointment.

“People are really struggling and I really get those experiences because I’ve lived them myself.”

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Major Boost For Rishi Sunak As Tories See Off Labour Challenge In Uxbridge

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The Conservatives have narrowly beaten Labour to retain Boris Johnson’s former seat following a bitter by-election campaign.

In a major blow for Keir Starmer, Steve Tuckwell beat Tory candidate Danny Beales by just 495 votes to become the new MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

The by-election was called following Johnson’s dramatic resignation last month after he was found guilty by the privileges committee of repeatedly lying to parliament over partygate.

The former prime minister retained the seat with a majority of 7,210 at the 2019 election.

Tuckwell received 13,965 votes to Beales’s 13,470 to claim the constituency for the Tories once again.

The Conservatives effectively turned the by-election into a referendum on Labour mayor Sadiq Khan’s decision to expand London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) across the whole of the city from next month.

The result of a huge boost for Rishi Sunak, who had been braced for the Tories to lose the seat, given the unpopularity of the government and Labour’s commanding lead in the national polls.

A Labour spokesperson said: “This was always going to be a difficult battle in a seat that has never had a Labour MP and we didn’t even win in 1997. We know that the Conservatives crashing the economy has hit working people hard, so it’s unsurprising that the ULEZ expansion was a concern for voters here in a by-election.”

Elsewhere, Labour have won the Selby and Ainsty by-election after toppling one of the safest Tory seats in the country.

And in the third by-election of the night, the Lib Dems pulled off a stunning victory in a previously safe Tory seat of Somerton and Frome.

Despite the Conservatives avoiding a three-nil defeat, the swing in the vote went away from the Tories in every seat.

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Kemi Badenoch Put On The Spot Over Failure To Sign US-UK Free Trade Deal

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Business secretary Kemi Badenoch was put on the spot on Sunday morning over the failure of the government to secure a free trade deal with United States, as had been promised by many Brexiteers.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Badenoch was repeatedly pressed on the topic.

“There is no sign of that American trade deal that is promised,” Kuenssberg said.

“That Brexit promise of a sort of buccaneering Britain massively benefiting from trading around the world, that just has not come to pass has it?”

Badenoch said the lack of a trade deal with the US was because of the “change of administration” from Donald Trump to Joe Biden.

“We can’t force other countries to do things that are different from what they want to do,” she said.

Kuenssberg pressed: “But that was a promise that was made to British voters.”

Badenoch said: “That was an agreement that was had with the previous president. You cannot force countries to join free trade agreements.”

Kuenssberg added: “So, it was a promise then that you were never going to be able to keep?”

A free trade deal with the US was one of the main selling points for Brexiteers in the run-up to the 2016 referendum.

But Liz Truss finally admitted in September last year – during her short time as prime minister – that it was not going to happen any time soon.

Rishi Sunak also conceded on a trip to Washington in June that an agreement was no longer “a priority” for either side.

Badenoch was speaking to the programme from New Zealand signed the UK up to the the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

The trade zone of around 500 million people includes Australia, Canada, Mexico, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam.

Badenoch hailed the agreement as having “so much potential” as “the world is our oyster”.

But the government’s own assessment of the deal suggests it could add only 0.08% to the size of the UK’s economy in 10 years.

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Tory Party Chair Leaves Twitter Bewildered With His Attempt To Mock Keir Starmer

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Greg Hands left people scratching their heads when he posted a video on Twitter trying to show up Keir Starmer – and failed, miserably.

The Conservative Party chair shared a 14-second video on Twitter on Thursday lunchtime showing the Labour Party leader arriving to campaign in the Selby and Ainsty by-election.

It comes after the Tory MP Nigel Adams resigned earlier this month. As a long-standing ally of Boris Johnson, he was expected to received a peerage in the ex-PM’s resignation honours but didn’t make the final cut.

When Starmer, deputy leader Angela Rayner and their team arrived at Selby train station, Conservative campaigners appeared to have arranged an ambush for them.

″Welcome to Selby, Sir Keir,” the Tories cheered, laughing and clapping as they spotted him.

But, the Labour leader looked far from taken aback. He just walked over to greet them, and the two groups seem to have an amicable exchange.

When Hands shared the footage on Twitter, though, he said: “North London Leftie lawyer and top flip-flopper Sir Keir is one of the Conservatives’ trump cards in the Selby By-Election!”

Understandably, Twitter was pretty confused over the point of the tweet, noting there didn’t seem to be any “gotcha” in the video (or the caption) at all…

Others reminded Hands that he, too, is a London MP…

And plenty said it just showed Starmer in an even better light.

Other people just joked that this was a sign the seat was going to be passed over to Labour.

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Greg Hands Gets Rinsed After Claiming Labour Would Put Everyone On The Dole

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Tory chairman Greg Hands got rinsed on Twitter after claiming a Labour government would mean “we’ll all be queuing outside the job centre”.

The outspoken MP – who regularly tries to troll the opposition on social media – posted a picture of the famous Tory election ad from 1979 showing a lengthy dole queue with the headline: “Labour isn’t working”.

Hands said: “If Labour get in, we’ll all be queuing outside the job centre.”

But the tweet led to a backlash from thousands of Twitter users – with many of them pointing out that Hands himself could be among those out of work after the election.

Hands is MP for Chelsea and Fulham, where he was re-elected in 2019 with a majority of 11,241.

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Thousands Denied A Vote Because Of Tory Voter ID Law, Say Election Chiefs

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Thousands of voters were barred from taking part in last month’s local elections because of the Tories’ voter ID law, election chiefs have revealed.

For the first time ever in Britain, voters were required to provide photographic proof of their identity in order to collect their ballot paper.

Ministers had argued that it was necessary to prevent voter fraud, despite there being no evidence that it is widespread problem in this country.

A report out today by the Electoral Commission found that around 14,000 who went to their polling station on May 4 were not given a ballot paper because they did not have the correct photographic identification.

Research found that 4% of all people who said they did not vote identified the new ID requirement as the reason.

The Electoral Commission said their data also suggested that disadvantaged groups were more likely to be impacted by the voter ID arrangements.

Opposition politicians said the report showed the new law was “a transparent attempt at voter suppression by Conservative ministers”.

Craig Westwood, the Electoral Commssion’s director of communications, policy and research, said: “The evidence suggests that the vast majority of voters were able to present an accepted form of ID at the May elections.

“But it also shows that some people were prevented from voting in polling stations due to the requirement, and significantly more did not attempt to because they lacked the required ID.”

He added: “We don’t want to see a single voter lose the opportunity to have their say. We are working to understand the challenges people faced, and will make recommendations that, with the engagement of Government and wider electoral community, will support the participation of all voters.”

Former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg admitted last month that the voter ID policy was an attempt at “gerrymandering” to boost the Tories – but that it had backfired because it kept more of their supporters out of the polling booths.

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “No legitimate voter should be locked out of democracy but that has been the effect of the Tories’ failed voter ID regulations.

“This evidence suggests shows that as well as those turned away at polling stations, many others did not attempt to vote because they lacked the required ID.

“It’s particularly alarming that under-represented groups look to have been more likely to have denied their say by these new barriers to voting. These strict rules are having a chilling effect on democracy.”

Lib Dem local government spokesperson Helen Morgan MP said: “It is an outrage that thousands of people were denied a voice at the local elections because of the Conservative Party’s Voter ID rules.

“Obstructing people’s right to vote like this in such a disproportionate way is a complete waste of money that undermines our democracy.

“It looks like a transparent attempt at voter suppression by Conservative ministers who are desperate to stop people from holding them to account by any means possible.”

Councillor James Jamieson, chairman of the Local Government Association, said: “It is a fundamental part of the democratic process that elections can run smoothly and effectively where every citizen is able to exercise their right to vote.

“It is therefore of concern to councils that this review has found that some groups may have been more impacted than others by the introduction of voter ID, with a small number being left unable to vote.”

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