A grim fatalism had settled over the Conservative party’s summer party in London on Thursday night as James Cleverly, home secretary, urged donors, grandees and other guests at the elite Hurlingham Club to “stick together through good and tough times”.
Cleverly had good reason to ask for solidarity as champagne glasses clinked by the Thames. Behind the scenes, Tory HQ has diverted party activists to campaign in his Braintree seat, a once impregnable Essex stronghold with a notional majority of over 25,000.
“Troops are being marshalled into Braintree,” said one senior Tory figure, warning that party support was “draining away” to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and opening up the possibility of Labour victories in unlikely places.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak did not attend the Hurlingham fundraiser as he was 200 miles away in York at a BBC debate, which was probably just as well, given the resigned mood. “Nobody was pretending we are still going to win the election,” said one guest.
Party donors are already voting with their wallets. New figures showed that in the second week of the campaign, Labour secured over £4mn in individual donations, almost 15 times more than the £292,000 the Tories scraped together.
The diversion of activists to Braintree is a symbol of a Tory campaign that is badly misfiring. Tory figures said that in some cases the party’s candidates — not activists — who are supposed to be fighting northern seats have been deployed to knock on doors in the south of England.
Conservative campaign officials insisted morale remains high and that the party is starting to “land” some of its messages. They denied the party is heading for the asteroid-level electoral event on July 4 that some polls have suggested.
Labour is also wary of the polls, some of which have suggested extreme results. Savanta, for example, said the Tories might win only 53 seats and Labour were heading for an astonishing 382 majority. Under that scenario, Sunak would lose his own Richmond seat.
A close ally of Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, said the polls also showed that millions of voters were still undecided, that many seats were “too close to call” and that “shy Tories” or those worried about a Labour landslide could shift the dial dramatically.
“If we make some fairly loose assumptions about ‘turn-up’ rates, there could be around 5.4mn voters who will come out but are as of yet undecided about how to vote,” the ally said, insisting there would be no complacency in the closing phase of the campaign.
Sunak’s campaign, however, continues to stagger from one mis-step to another. In York, the prime minister was asked by an audience member if he was “embarrassed” to lead the Conservative party.
In the latest campaign debacle, senior figures close to him are being investigated for allegedly placing bets for a July election before Sunak announced the date. Tory HQ confirmed that director of campaigns Tony Lee had “stepped away” from his role while the probe continues.
Sunak said on Thursday: “I was incredibly angry to learn of these allegations. It is a really serious matter. I want to be crystal clear that if anyone has broken the rules, they should face the full force of the law.”
Sunak’s allies said he feels personally let down. “He’s loyal to the people around him so this is incredibly disappointing to him. It’s a massive error of judgment. Just stupid,” one said.
The prime minister has failed during the campaign to escape a narrative of a leader whose time in office is drawing to an end, stretching back to his sodden announcement of the election in a May rainstorm in Downing Street.
His decision to return early from D-Day events in France was a self-inflicted disaster, while this week he was lampooned over his unsuccessful attempt to feed a flock of Devon sheep.
YouGov on Friday said that a record 75 per cent of Britons have an unfavourable opinion of Sunak, worse than either Boris Johnson or Liz Truss at their most unpopular.
Nobody in Sunak’s camp is arguing any more that the Conservatives will win on July 4, but they believe there are signs that the prime minister can hold back the electoral landslide that pollsters are predicting.
The last 12 days of the campaign will see the Tories hammer home their two most effective messages: that Labour would put up taxes and that it would be dangerous to let Starmer win with a “supermajority”.
“Both of those messages are really cutting through,” said one Tory campaign official. “Labour’s vote share is coming down, which shows what we are doing is working.”
The problem, as Sunak’s team admits, is that Labour’s lead remains at over 20 points, as the Tory poll position has been squeezed by the defection of party supporters to Reform UK.
The Tory campaign hopes to peel back some of those Reform-minded voters in the closing days of the campaign.
“Some of them want to burn everything to the ground,” said one Tory official. “But others don’t like Labour and are perhaps more persuadable.”
Sunak and Starmer will go head-to-head in a BBC debate next Wednesday in the final set-piece duel of the election, as both parties prepare to make their closing pitches to the voters.
But for some Conservatives, attention is already turning to the day after the poll on July 4. One official said some Tories who had stayed loyal to Sunak hoped to receive a political honour, adding they would be “furious” if they were not recognised.
Meanwhile at the Hurlingham, guests noted potential future Tory leaders such as Kemi Badenoch, Grant Shapps and Priti Patel working the tables. “It felt like the end of an era — and the start of a new one,” said one onlooker.