Tory Party, a sinking ship?

After fourteen years in power, the Conservative Party has managed to run it's reputation, the economy, the country's infrastructure and social mobility into the ground. The UK has been crying out for an election since the pandemic and the results of the recent by-elections indicate the scale of the potential electoral wipe-out coming later this year. But beyond the election, is the party itself on the brink of implosion?

The recent by-elections in Wellingborough and Kingswood continue the trend of Conservative to Labour swings. With Wellingborough marking the second largest swing since World War Two and YouGov predicting in January that the Conservatives will retain just 169 seats against a Labour win of a predicted 385 seats, some political commentators are predicting a 1997 Blair-level wipe-out at the election. In response to the by-elections, Sunak insisted that "mid-term elections are always difficult" for incumbent governments. His critics have pointed out that these are not mid-terms with years to turn the results around but that he has mere months.

These results hit the headlines along with the UK slipping into a technical recession. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found that GDP fell 0.3% in the final quarter of 2023. Sunak's competence is being questioned in light of this as one of his five priority pledges was to grow the economy.

Internally, the Conservative Party is suffering from the increased number of factions emerging and are losing the right of the party with their voter base to Reform who won over 10% of the vote in the recent by-elections. The One Nation faction of the party has warned Sunak that it would be "politically disastrous" if they moved any further right. Former prime minister Liz Truss recently launched PopCon, short for Popular Conservatives, which argue that every single institution must have brainwashed woke leftists in charge because god forbid the party that's been in power for nearly a decade and a half take any accountability for the state of the country. There have been constant rumblings of MPs calling for the prime minister's resignation under Sunak and his two predecessors. Currently Simon Clarke and Andrea Jenkyns are the only two MPs that have publicly called for his resignation but political commentators suspect that many MPs are waiting for the May by-election results.

Some of the internal strife can be traced back to the leadership contest when Boris Johnson resigned. Limited to Conservative Party members, Truss won 57.4% of the vote against Sunak who then won the seat from her when she resigned because nobody else ran for leadership. The fatigue from a series of unelected prime ministers and the fact that Sunak wasn't the majority's first choice has resulted in a divided party that doesn't fully back their leader. It seems extremely likely that when the party loses the election, Sunak is forced out as leader.

Sunak has been plagued with bad headlines recently thanks to bad policy decisions and poor tasting comments such as the so-called joke he aimed at Keir Starmer in PMQs about trans people when the mother of murdered trans teen Brianna Ghey was present just mere days after her daughter's murderers were sentenced. The Tory focus on culture wars and non-issues such as banning mobile phones in school, which were already banned by most, make them fundamentally look weak at crafting policy. Forget about your dreams of owning a home in the future but it's fine because now your children's teachers can confiscate their phone and not be liable for any damage.

You have to hand it to the Tories though. They don't give up trying to get extremely flawed policies passed from Brexit to Rwanda. Obviously, I am not arguing the merits of these policies - the determination to abandon the ECHR is abhorrent - but their determination will be their downfall. Their unwillingness to listen to public opinion or their own MPs have kept them in an echo chamber of the right wing of the party.

Though the date of the general election remains unconfirmed, 2024 is already shaping up to be an interesting year for UK politics and democracy. Pressure is mounting on the Conservatives but will they crack?