The Rishi Sunak-led Rwanda Bill managed to make it through the House of Commons with a comfortable margin this week, despite concerns of a possible government defeat. However, it was not all smooth sailing for the prime minister and his team. The same week saw Conservative MPs confronted with reminders of their own political fragility, with a YouGov poll from the Telegraph projecting that Labour is on track for a 120-seat majority.
The “multi-level regression and post-stratification” polling method used by YouGov is meant to provide accurate predictions in individual constituencies. While some Conservative MPs were not surprised by the poll’s results, others were less convinced. Downing Street’s election guru, Isaac Levido, told Conservative MPs at a briefing that the MRP model was “just another poll” and was “just false” as a claim of special authority. However, Mr. Levido’s message was far from reassuring, with the graph of opinion polls he presented showing that Labour was consistently ahead of the Conservatives.
Mr. Levido’s pitch for a Conservative turnaround relies on Rishi Sunak telling the public that he has a plan for change, as opposed to Keir Starmer’s Labour, which he claims will “take the country back to square one.” While some Conservative MPs are relieved to have a simple yet effective message to use, others are experiencing whiplash, as they perceive that just a few months ago Mr. Sunak was portrayed as an agent of change.
Despite the success of the Rwanda Bill, Downing Street remained concerned about at least 60 MPs’ voting record showing that they want Mr. Sunak to go further on immigration policy. These signs of disquiet have been interpreted as evidence of a slight threat to Mr. Sunak’s leadership. At the moment, the threshold for triggering a confidence vote in his leadership is 53 MPs – fewer than the number who rebelled on Rwanda this week.
After a week of parliamentary progress, it seems Mr. Sunak may need clearer political progress to prevent his party from becoming regicidal. Many Conservatives are expecting a poor outcome in the local elections in May, which could worsen things for Mr. Sunak. “Some people are already starting to panic,” a Tory MP stated. “It’s easy to dismiss one MRP poll but when it’s on the back of lots of other polls people find batting that away quite hard. The accumulation of despondency may become too much.
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