On Thursday night, Westminster’s journalists gathered in the book-lined dining room of the former Liberal Club on Whitehall for the annual Press Gallery Dinner, a tradition stretching back to the 1920s.
Seated among them was Rishi Sunak, who listened with a rictus grin fixed on his face as one of the speeches wished him good luck ahead of what would be his “first and, quite possibly, last” Tory party conference as leader.
The Conservatives’ rank and file descend on Manchester for their annual get together this weekend, and already MPs and activists are viewing the annual convention as a beauty parade for who should take over from Mr Sunak when – in their minds, at least – the party loses the next election.
Train strikes scheduled to disrupt the conference, coupled with the fury over the Prime Minister’s wavering over whether to build HS2 to Manchester, will give Mr Sunak an easy reminder of the challenges he faces in maintaining power.
But both he and his inner circle still believe there remains a narrow path for the Tories to upset the odds and retain power when the public goes to the polls.
His recent pivot away from the green agenda, the renewed focus on motorists and the hint of tax cuts has led to a minor narrowing in some of the polls, with both Deltapoll and Savanta now putting the Tories at 14 points behind Labour.
The upturn has even prompted some Liz Truss supporters to offer a rare, albeit heavily guarded, glimpse of optimism.
“With the net zero changes and positive noises on inheritance tax, it really sounds like he’s starting to come round to our way of thinking. And the polls have been narrowing!” one Trussite cheered.
But the source swiftly added: “Though not enough to win, obviously.”
The conference offers Mr Sunak perhaps his last chance to set out to activists what it is he stands for. His team have gone to great lengths to ensure he is the focus as those from both inside and outside his Cabinet jostle for pole position to succeed him, should he fail to win over the electorate.
One party source told i: “No 10 don’t want Cabinet ministers to be doing too much, they want it all to be the Rishi show.”
A former Tory minister said the Prime Minister had to offer hope and vision at conference, including a retail offer that dovetails with his five pledges, suggesting Mr Sunak ram home the message that if his inflation promise is met “in a year’s time you’ll have more pounds in your pocket”.
Severe doubts linger, however, on his chances of success as the party looks more divided than ever as the various factions within the Conservatives battle for primacy ahead of another potential leadership race after the election.
Ghosts of Mr Sunak’s past loom large over the party conference. Tory insiders said Priti Patel’s planned appearance alongside Liz Truss at a so-called “growth rally” suggested there was a gathering of the clans of Johnsonites and Trussites that was “at least partly” about the leadership “beauty parade” at conference.
But other Tories insisted that Ms Truss is “out on the moon and nobody else is with her”. “No one wants to see and hear Liz Truss out and about doing interviews,” the backbencher said.
Another outside leadership candidate, the avowed Johnson supporter Sir Brandon Lewis, and his potential running mate Nadhim Zahawi were also part of “a whole crew of them coalescing around [free market think tank] the Adam Smith Institute”.
The source described it as a “populist/libertarian alliance” but quipped: “The commonality is that they are not big fans of reality”.
“We’ve got to hope the party resists the siren calls.”
Meanwhile another right-wing Tory caucus is building significant momentum. The New Conservatives, the deeply socially conservative wing of the party, is making waves as it seeks to push the Tory party even further to the Right.
The group is holding a “rally for the manifesto” as it pushes to ensure more policies that chime with its own values are given prominence in the party’s general election manifesto.
But the faction is causing serious concern among more moderate Tory MPs. One senior backbencher told i that the group has substantial financial backing from “underground donors” with some of its funding believed to be coming from the US.
This was vehemently denied by a spokesman for the New Conservatives, who said that it is a members’ association and must declare all its donations by law with the Electoral Commission.
But, the backbencher notes: “They’ve got a lot of money and they are doing an awful lot of media.”
While some within the group are hitching their wagons to the movement in the hope of keeping their seats, through policies such as taking a hard line immigration, the views held by the more prominent members of the caucus are causing deep ruptions within the party.
“They have Danny Kruger, Miriam Cates and Nick Fletcher, who are socially conservative in the most extreme possible manner,” the MP added.
Each are devout Christians, with Ms Cates recently claiming that biological parents are best suited to raise their children, so policies should be created to ensure mothers can stay at home to look after their offspring, rather relying on nurseries.
The source claimed that so divisive were Mr Kruger’s views on divorce, which he claimed was undermining a “safe and functioning society”, that his own Tory colleagues were “squaring up to him in the division lobbies” to angrily challenge him on his comments.
The group is believed to be rallying around Suella Braverman as a potential successor to Mr Sunak. The Home Secretary courted further controversy this week by labelling illegal migration as an “existential threat” to the West. Others on the right of the party are looking to Kemi Badenoch, who has led a staunch pushback against the growing gender debate.
But the growing prominence of the right of the party has led to despair among the more moderate One Nation Tories.
“There’s an increasing willingness among the centrists to just allow the New Conservatives to champion their social conservatism without challenge,” one moderate said. “One Nationers are inherently reluctant to do blue on blue attacks unlike our colleagues on the Right. And anyone with ambition sees it harder to openly say they are centrists.”
An unlikely standard bearer for the moderate cause is Michelle Donelan, the Science and Technology Secretary, who will be making a speech on Tuesday morning which she hopes to use to raise her profile with the public and within the party.
A source said: “Michelle is planning to really set out where she stands politically. A lot of the other high-profile women are very divisive – Suella, Kemi etc – so she offers a point of difference there.”
She is unlikely to be alone in pruning her feathers in a bid to catch the attention of the Tory membership, but her chances of success appear dim given the party’s recent leadership choices.
The very fact that the party is so openly musing on who should carry the crown next does not augur well for Mr Sunak’s chances of leading his party to victory.
When asked how the Tory conference will go, one Cabinet minister drily muttered: “It will be happy families as usual. We’re all united behind Rishi.”
Source : INews
