Rishi Sunak is holding out for an economic miracle before the next general election. Twin defeats on opposite ends of England show voters have little patience for his strategy to play out.
While Sunak vowed to stick to his plan after losing two seats and narrowly retaining a third on Thursday, ruling party ministers, lawmakers and advisers told Bloomberg News that the results mean much more is needed. They said Sunak must radically change tactics and cabinet — and unveil new policies at the Tory conference in October — to create dividing lines with the Labour opposition.
Failure to heed the warnings could result in a wipeout at the next general election, according to the officials, who requested anonymity discussing their personal views. Trailing Labour by about 20 points in recent polls, Sunak is mulling holding the national vote in November 2024 to give the economy as long as possible to recover while avoiding a winter ballot.
On Thursday, the Tories lost one seat with a historic 24 percentage point swing to Labour, and another on a 29-point reversal to the Liberal Democrats. But Sunak sought solace in the third result, from Uxbridge and South Ruislip, former premier Boris Johnson’s old constituency on the fringes of London, which the Tories held by a tiny margin.
On Friday, he told broadcasters the result showed the general election wasn’t a “done deal.” He vowed to stick to the five priorities — halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting debt, stopping small-boat migration and reducing health service waiting lists — he has repeated in nearly every public appearance since the new year.
“The message I take away is that we’ve got to double down, stick to our plan and deliver,” Sunak said. “We’re going to work incredibly hard, deliver our five priorities.”
Despite Sunak’s bullishness about Uxbridge, the hard reality for him is Thursday’s votes showed a public greatly dissatisfied by the Conservative record since 2010. One aide said the result in the seat won by Labour on a near-record swing was more relevant to the party’s prospects in a general election, because it was fought on national issues.
“The Conservatives are still in considerable electoral trouble,” John Curtice, an influential polling analyst who’s also a politics professor at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, told Bloomberg.
A major problem is that Sunak’s promises appear harder to achieve now than when he made them. Inflation remains near quadruple the official target; economists predict a recession, the national debt has pushed through 100% of GDP for the first time in decades, NHS waiting lists are at a record and small boat crossings remain high.
Some members of Sunak’s own party — including close allies — believe the approach is wrong.
Even if an unexpectedly sharp decline in the rate of inflation this week was a cause of optimism, one supporter said that the cost of living would remain high and growth would be meager, while progress on immigration and health would be hard to glimpse by year-end. Sunak will get no credit if he meets his economic targets by a whisker and fails on health care and small boats, the person said.
One Tory member of Parliament said that if Sunak continued to beat the drum on his pledges — and missed them — Labour arguments would prove stickier and he may face calls to quit. Another MP said there was disquiet at Sunak’s strategy, characterizing it as accepting defeat and merely trying to avoid a landslide next year.
That has resulted in low-energy performances from the premier and his cabinet and cratering morale, they said, calling on No. 10 to more aggressively take the fight to Labour.
That means making more extensive cabinet changes than previously envisaged, multiple Tory MPs and advisers argued. People familiar with internal party discussions said that after Defence Secretary Ben Wallace signaled his intention to leave the cabinet, at least another eight members of Sunak’s top team were likely to retire at the election. Those veterans should be replaced now so Sunak can bring in new faces and present the Tories as a party of the future, one MP said.
Central to the shake-up would be ensuring the Treasury accepted an election offer of tax cuts, meaning a Sunak ally, such as Claire Coutinho, should be installed in a key role, an official said.
Another aide said Downing Street needs to show how the Tories will deliver on key issues in contrast to Labour. They criticized Sunak for being side-tracked by long-term legacy projects like math-to-18 teaching and policies on artificial intelligence, which they said were noble but would win few votes.
The aide suggested five new pledges were needed to reverse apathy among traditional Tory voters, focusing on “protecting” property, pensions, borders, women and children, and boilers and cars from perceived threats by Labour.
The Tories should argue a Labour government would raise taxes and spending, ditch a generous guarantee on pensions rises and stop people in southern England from passing their homes to their children when they die, the aide said. The Tories could also accuse Starmer of being soft on transgender issues, criticize his record on crime during his legal career, and attack his immigration policies, the aide said.
Opposition leader Keir Starmer has pledged fiscal prudence as he tries to close off the Tory attack that would be reckless with the public finances. That message is cutting through: surveys show Labour is now more trusted than the Tories on the economy.
In the wake of the successful Uxbridge campaign opposing restrictions on vehicle emissions, some in government expect Sunak to use Net Zero and green issues to differentiate the Tories from Labour. The Tories should run “hands off our boilers” and “hands off our cars” messages implying Starmer would cut freedoms and cost voters money in pursuit of a rapid green transition, they said.
Uxbridge proves the “delivery and rolling-out of green policies is a tricky business” that means “you have to carry the people around you,” Patrick English, Political Research Manager at YouGov, told Bloomberg Radio. “Else there could be electoral consequences.”
--With assistance from Ellen Milligan and Emily Ashton.
