Another week and, with disturbing predictability, yet another miscreant MP. Another recall petition looms as a result, carrying the likelihood of another parliamentary byelection to follow. And with that, another potential humiliation for the Conservatives. At times, while the world roils, it seems as if Britain’s party of power is simply rotting away before our eyes.
This time the offender is Peter Bone, the publicity-seeking rightwing MP for Wellingborough whose career reflects the ascent and now the eclipse of the Tory party’s Brexit obsessives – he was suspended from the party earlier this month. Even were there no other evidence against Boris Johnson’s judgment, you would find enough in his decision last year, as he tried to cling on to power, to make Bone a minister while the MP was under investigation. It is no surprise that a survey this week revealed that lack of faith in politics is now a larger public concern than Europe.
Johnson’s folly has now been followed down the drain by Bone’s own career. On Wednesday the MP was given a 30-day suspension from parliament after allegations of harassment and bullying were upheld, despite his continual denials. If Bone does not resign, his suspension will trigger a recall petition in Wellingborough. This would probably succeed, thus sparking a byelection there.
In more placid times, the Tories might have hopes of clinging on to a seat where Bone took more than 60% of the vote and enjoyed an 18,540 majority in 2019. But we live in the era of stupendous Labour captures in byelections of just that kind, the most recent only seven days ago in Mid Bedfordshire and in Tamworth, where even larger majorities than Bone’s were swept away.
Wellingborough mirrors Tamworth. A formerly industrial area, the Northamptonshire seat voted strongly pro-leave in 2016, and has elected Labour MPs in the past, most recently in 1997 and 2001. It has many of the characteristics of the red wall seats in the north and Midlands that Johnson captured in 2019. Although, at 250th, Wellingborough is way down the list of vulnerable Tory seats in a general election, Labour will be expected to win it now.
Another bad byelection would be terrible news for Rishi Sunak. It would also be another strong sign that Keir Starmer is on course to be prime minister. Nevertheless, it is hard not to feel something else at the same time – that, almost regardless of party preference, the current frustrated state of politics is not good for Britain at home and on the international stage. Moreover, it is likely to get worse before it gets any better.
As Rishi Sunak completes his first year as prime minister this week, it is a daunting thought that he may not yet have reached the halfway point of his time in Downing Street. The date of the next general election rests in his hands. Most speculation has assumed that the contest will come next spring or, more probably, next autumn. But the byelections have increased the possibility that the next general election will not take place in 2024 at all. Instead – and assuming that it is called for the traditional Thursday – that election could now be delayed until the last possible date the law permits: 23 January 2025.
Going down to the wire before calling a general election has precedents. Sunak would be the seventh postwar prime minister to be driven into this corner, following Clement Attlee in 1950, Alec Douglas-Home in 1964, James Callaghan in 1979, John Major in 1992 and 1997, Gordon Brown in 2010 and, governing at a time when fixed five-year parliaments were the law, David Cameron in 2015.
In most cases, however, prime ministers like these have hung on because they can, because they hope the opposition will implode before polling day, and because they hope something will turn up. But there may be a further reason too. Callaghan spurned the chance to call an election in 1978, before the so-called winter of discontent that finally nailed Labour’s chances. One of his advisers once told me he thought Callaghan knew he would lose anyway, so preferred to go down in the history books as prime minister from 1976 to 1979 rather than 1976-78. It would just look better.
Sunak may nurse a similar feeling. Prime minister 2022-25, would look marginally better than 2022-24, after all. But that small vanity would come at a large cost to a country that seems, on all the evidence, to have decided already that it needs a new government and that it is ready to elect one. In that case, the real question facing British politics is not the result of the next election. It is whether the election can come soon enough.
The chances of Sunak choosing to go early are poor. He still has a working majority of about 60. He has struggled to make progress on any of the issues he has asked to be judged by – the economy, migration and the NHS. The pressure to go long will be powerful.
Meanwhile the electoral verdict shows no sign of changing. Labour’s poll lead remains steady. A Wellingborough byelection could be a big Labour capture. Next May’s local elections take place in English and Welsh seats where Johnson did well when they were last contested in 2021, so serious Tory losses in town halls seem likely.
Might Tory morale crack? Large numbers of Tory MPs have already decided to step down next time, and parts of the party are jockeying for the next leadership contest. Sunak may even be forced to sack ministers if these manoeuvres heat up. If that happens, many bets are off.
Which leaves the question of whether Sunak could be forced to call the election early. There is no chance of that without consistent pressure. As well he might, Starmer called for a general election at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday . But the demand needs to enter the national bloodstream for it to have any chance of becoming irresistible. Is that a possibility? Probably not. But in the current state of British politics, nothing can be ruled out altogether.
• Martin Kettle is a Guardian columnist
