Senior Tories attempted to rally behind an increasingly beleaguered Rishi Sunak on Saturday night amid claims that some Conservative MPs are plotting to replace him with Penny Mordaunt before the next general election.
Former cabinet ministers Jacob Rees-Mogg and David Davis went public to denounce the idea as “mad” and “bonkers”, as did senior backbenchers, including former vice-chair of the 1922 Committee Sir Charles Walker.
With many backbench Tories – including some with healthy majorities – increasingly fearful of losing their seats in an election wipeout, accounts of a “plot” to oust Sunak surfaced on Saturday in the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
The Mail said MPs on the right of the party had “held talks with moderates” about uniting behind Mordaunt, the leader of the House of Commons, and anointing her as leader in a “coronation” in the coming weeks.
Mordaunt made no public comment about the claims but her supporters said she was not party to, or aware of, any such plot, and that she believed the stories were an attempt by her detractors on the right to damage any potential challenge she may make in future, after a Tory election defeat.
Several Tory MPs maintain, however, that Mordaunt has been “on manoeuvres” for months, making clear she would be happy to visit MPs’ constituencies and get to know their local party officials.
Davis, who is close to Mordaunt and backed her campaign against Liz Truss in 2022, said the idea was “completely bonkers at all levels” and would mean calls for an election would become “irresistible”.
“We need to fight this election together and we won’t do it if we are fighting each other,” Davis said. “Whoever won such a contest would be the shortest serving prime minister ever – even shorter than Liz Truss.”
Rees-Mogg said any attempt to hold yet another contest would backfire: “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. The idea that changing the prime minister now would make the Conservatives more popular, with an election in view, is madness. It would be destructive for the Tories.”
Walker insisted a majority of Tories would ensure another contest or coronation did not take place. “It is beyond belief that sensible people in the Conservative parliamentary party would allow a leadership contest to happen,” he said. “It will not be allowed. It is about a faction of the Conservative party that thrives on drama and chaos.”
Several senior figures argued that far from being a unifying figure, Mordaunt would actually be “hugely divisive” herself. They said her views on Israel, gender and other issues would mean “most of the right” would never support her.
During the leadership contest called to replace Boris Johnson in 2022, Mordaunt came under attack from within the party and by the rightwing press over her views on gender self-identification.
Another senior Tory said: “Perhaps the only thing more ridiculous is the idea that everyone would magically accept Saint Penny, despite her very obvious limitations and frankly bizarre views on gender issues.”
The fact, however, that such rumours are surfacing reflects an increasingly febrile atmosphere within the party, and a growing sense of desperation about the prospect of impending electoral disaster after 14 years in power.
Many senior Tories have already given up on the prospect of beating Labour and now believe their task is to limit the party’s losses.
In recent days, Sunak and the Tories have seen Jeremy Hunt’s budget – in which he cut national insurance for working people by 2p – fail to shift the party in the polls, the defection of former deputy chairman Lee Anderson to Reform UK and revelations in the Guardian of racist comments about Labour MP Diane Abbott by the Conservative party’s biggest donor, Frank Hester.
Opposition party leaders are becoming increasingly confident that the Conservatives could fall apart at the election in a way not seen since 1997.
In an interview with the Observer, Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat leader, said before his party’s spring conference this weekend that it was shaping up to be a “once in a generation election” where the Conservatives would be unable to patch things up.
“This reminds me of the mid-1990s,” he said. “Often the Conservative party, somehow, with its money, with the first-past-the-post system and all the advantages it has, often pulls it out of the bag. I don’t think it’s going to. This is my eighth election. In my constituency, I’m knocking on doors of people who’ve never voted for me.
“A real chunk are now saying they’re going to vote for me. They just can’t bring themselves to vote Conservative. We’re seeing some quite extraordinary results.
“We’ve only ever won one seat in Surrey in my lifetime. I think we’ll win more than one seat this time. Surrey Heath [Michael Gove’s seat] is looking interesting. I’m not saying we’re going to win it. There’ll be several other seats in Surrey we’d win first. But it’s a sign of the times that it’s even on our radar.”
