Rishi Sunak’s campaign director has told fractious Conservative MPs to unite or face losing this year’s election in a blunt message designed to rally the backbenches before a long and gruelling campaign.
Isaac Levido, the Australian political strategist, told MPs at the 1922 Committee of backbench Conservatives on Monday night they could still win the election, but only if they “get serious” and end party infighting.
His comments were made before a series of crunch votes this week on the government’s Rwanda bill, which could mean dozens of Tory MPs rebelling to kill off Sunak’s signature migration policy.
“Let me be clear: divided parties fail,” Levido told Tory MPs. “It’s time to get serious – I am fighting to win this election, and I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe it was possible. We all need to be fighting to win this election.”
Levido, a protege of the veteran Australian strategist Lynton Crosby, began working in Downing Street at the beginning of the year as Sunak’s campaign chief.
Last year he told Tories on an away day they had a “narrow path” to victory in 2024. But at the beginning of this year, with the party 18 points behind Labour in the polls, he has reportedly revised that assessment, telling officials the path is now “a bit narrower and a bit steeper”.
Senior Tories credit Levido with a ferocious work ethic and the ability to pick a single campaign theme and stick to it. His arrival at No 10 has coincided with a switch in strategy from painting Sunak as a reforming prime minister who can tackle 30 years of government failure, to depicting him instead as the guardian of a fragile national recovery.
His message was undermined on Monday morning, however, by the publication of a dramatic poll in the Telegraph showing the Tories heading for a 1997-style landslide defeat.
Levido told MPs on Monday to ignore the poll, which showed the party slumping to just 169 seats while Labour sweeps to power with 385. And he accused those behind it, including the Boris Johnson ally Lord Frost, of trying to undermine the government.
“The people who organised this poll and analysed and timed the release of it seem to be intent on undermining this government and our party, and therefore the re-election prospects of every single one of you in this room,” he said.
“They seem to be throwing in the towel, and are more interested in what happens after the election rather than fighting it – making the pathway narrower and steeper.”
MPs at the briefing emerged looking grim-faced, but praised Levido’s clarity of vision. Asked whether his message had been optimistic or pessimistic, one replied: “Realistic.”
