Rishi Sunak’s political fate will hang on the judgment of millions of voters in an array of local elections and mayoral contests taking place across England and Wales on Thursday.
Senior Tories fear that if Sunak’s party loses more than half of the 900 or so council seats it is defending along with crucial mayoralties, some MPs could panic and move to unseat the UK prime minister.
The commonly held view among Tory MPs is that Sunak’s position is highly dependent on the performance of two high-profile Conservative mayors — Andy Street in the West Midlands and Lord Ben Houchen in Tees Valley.
“If we lose them, then it will be squeaky bum time,” said one former cabinet minister and ally of Sunak, quoting former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson. “I don’t know what will happen then.”
All voters in England and Wales will be able to cast at least one vote. More than 2,600 council seats are up for grabs, while mayors will be elected in London and ten other areas outside the capital.
There will be elections for police and crime commissioners, and in the parliamentary seat of Blackpool South there will be a by-election. Labour expects to easily overturn a 3,690 Conservative majority.
The elections, the last significant test of voting patterns before a UK general election, are expected to see heavy defeats for the Conservatives across the board. “We are expecting to see significant losses,” Chancellor Jeremy Hunt admitted on Sky News on Wednesday.
The last time most of these elections were held was in 2021, when the Tories were enjoying a “vaccine bounce” as former prime minister Boris Johnson’s party reaped the benefits of a national sense that the pandemic was drawing to a close.
Back then the Conservatives secured a national equivalent vote share of 40 per cent. Today, the party averages 23.6 per cent, according to the polls. Sunak is understandably looking for glimmers of hope and wants to focus attention on the party’s fortunes in West Midlands and Tees Valley.
Sunak praised local mayors Street and Houchen at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Wednesday as exemplars of what Tories could do in local government. “There’s only one choice — vote Conservative.”
Sunak’s team calculate that the loss of up to 500 council seats is “in the price” and that if Street and Houchen survive, then Tory MPs will be reassured that they can still win on their record if they fight hard enough.
It will be an agonising wait for the prime minister. The result from Tees Valley is not expected until Friday lunchtime, while Street’s fate will not be known until Saturday.
Labour claims the Conservatives will win both mayoralties, but Tory strategists insist this is “expectation management”. One Tory campaign chief said: “Labour are flooding both areas with activists and leaflets.”
Ironically, given Sunak’s reliance on Street and Houchen, both Tory mayors have fought campaigns which have made little reference to the prime minister or even that they are standing as Conservatives.
“Even the mayors that he’s pinning his political survival on don’t want to be seen anywhere near him,” Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said in the Commons.
While Street has avoided using pictures of Sunak in his campaign material, he has sent voters in the West Midlands an endorsement from Johnson, the former prime minister who is seen as more of a vote-winner.
“Forget about government,” Johnson urged voters. “Forget about Westminster. The election is about the next four years in the West Midlands — and who do you want in charge?” Johnson has also recorded a video message supporting Houchen.
A YouGov poll this week put Street on 41 per cent, just two points ahead of his Labour challenger Richard Parker on 39. In Tees Valley, YouGov gave Houchen a seven-point lead over Labour’s Chris McEwan.
Conservative HQ insiders say the West Midlands contest is tight but they are increasingly confident of victory in Tees Valley.
The stakes are high. “If Ben Houchen loses, I think we will lose our heads,” said one ex-cabinet minister who believes the party would be crazy to ditch Sunak. “People will say: ‘Why not roll the dice?’”
In the biggest mayoral contest, polls suggest London’s Labour mayor Sadiq Khan is set to comfortably win a third term in office over his Tory rival Susan Hall.
Sunak has spent the run-up to election day trying to show he is still brimming with policy ideas, promising more defence spending, a crackdown on welfare and progress on his Rwanda asylum policy.
“Those are exactly the three things you would do if you were trying save your arse,” said one minister, but warned it might not be enough to placate nervous Tory MPs. “I would put his survival chances at about 80 per cent.”
Downing Street is braced for turbulence whatever happens in the mayoral contests, with rebel rightwingers drawing up plans to try to bring Sunak down. A total of 52 Tory MPs are needed to trigger a no-confidence vote.
Senior Tory MPs say that Sunak would survive such a vote, but he would be seriously damaged and a divided party would inevitably slide to a general election defeat.
The prime minister will be helped by the fact that Britain is entering a bank holiday weekend. With public attention elsewhere and MPs safely away from Westminster most plotting will have to be done by WhatsApp.
One rebel insider said the aim was “to influence where the perception is by Monday morning”, arguing that a Conservative victory in Tees Valley was no proof the party was not heading for electoral disaster.
“In 2021, Ben Houchen won by 73 per cent of the vote,” the insider said. Only six Tory MPs won their constituency by 73 per cent of the vote or more in 2019.
Sir Simon Clarke, Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman, a trio of former cabinet ministers who have been strongly critical of Sunak, will be among those being most closely watched by Number 10.
The prime minister’s allies insist that talk of Sunak calling a snap election to head off a mutiny is “completely untrue”; he is still hoping that improving economic news will turn the political tide before an autumn poll.
Privately, some Labour MPs believe that Sunak may just about be able to hold his party together if the Tories win the two mayoral contests, even if the rest of the results on Thursday are toxic.
One senior Labour MP complained their party had mishandled expectations: “Reams of our frontbenchers have been up to Tees Valley in the past few weeks — it proves we think it’s in play and it’s a difficult narrative if we don’t pull it off.”