The mayoral and council elections in England and Wales ended last Thursday, and the results aligned with pollsters’ projections that the ruling Conservative Party would suffer a significant defeat. Quickly and confidently, the opposition Labour Party climbed over the Conservatives’ shoulders and took in its victory. If the results are replicated in the upcoming parliamentary elections, Labour has cleared its path to 10 Downing Street. It is worth noting that every party but the Conservatives managed to increase their number of council seats. The Conservatives lost nearly half of their local council seats and suffered a humiliating parliamentary by-election defeat in Blackpool South to the Labour Party by a large margin.
According to commentators, the elections are significant because of the reactions they could stir in Conservative Party circles, especially their implications for the British Prime Minister and Conservative Party Leader Rishi Sunak.
A few days before the election date, I read a statement British Home Secretary James Cleverly had made to the media warning Conservative MPs against the repercussions of ousting and replacing Mr. Sunak after the election results came out. The statement shows that Cleverly had anticipated the striking magnitude of the Conservatives' defeat and that he knew it would concern many Conservative Party officials and MPs, encouraging them to hastily take a risky political gamble.
It's evident from the statement and its timing that Cleverly is well aware of what is happening behind closed doors. He has clearly been briefed on the reported plot by groups of (mostly far-right) Conservative MPs who support former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Losers have nothing to fear from another loss. This is true for life in general, and it is particularly true for politics. None of the Conservative MPs, who are threatened with losing their seats in the upcoming elections, would disagree. Accordingly, many Conservative MPs will not hesitate to seize any opportunity to throw the dice one last time, hoping for good luck and a win, or at least to minimize their electoral defeat. Of course, it will not be too difficult to find opportunists who are ready to lead the plot and volunteer to wield the dagger and stab Prime Minister Sunak in the back. Indeed, conventional wisdom tells us that if the loser has nothing to fear, gamblers have an opportunity to win, if not the parliamentary elections, then the party leadership. After that, all bets are off!
Despite its dazzling lights, the world of politics remains a dark and frightening place that the faint-hearted should avoid. In the hallways of British politics in general, and those of the Conservative Party in particular, this obscurity seems particularly pronounced. The bright lights conceal tense struggles between different parties that represent competing and conflicting interests. Each of them seeks to hold the levers of power and protect their interests, and to all of them, "the end justifies the means.”
If the price of maintaining the current status quo and avoiding electoral defeat demands nothing more than removing the Conservative leader and replacing him, then the problem would seem to have been solved. However, the Conservatives would not solve their problems by getting rid of Mr. Sunak. Their actual problem is that parliamentary elections are not far off. The noose around their neck is becoming tighter every day. They do not have the time to orchestrate and implement a plan to avert a painful electoral fate that could mirror that which they suffered at the hands of New Labour and Sir Tony Blair in 1997.
