This article is taken from the April 2023 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

The Conservatives take comfort in being Britain’s oldest political party. As history aficionados, some will recall Tacitus’s quip about an ill-fated emperor that “everyone thought they would be capable of governing, until they actually took charge”. 

The Roman historian was writing about a time of unprecedented political bloodshed, in which supreme power changed hands repeatedly in the so-called Year of the Four Emperors. Nearly two millennia later, Boris Johnson can console himself that his ousting was just the start of a modern tribute act by the Tories in their own Year of the Three Prime Ministers. 

A sense of fatalism and resignation is spreading among the Tories

Rishi Sunak came out on top from the turmoil, elevated to the leadership by the acclamation of Tory MPs. If the British people had hailed him with the same acclaim, he would be safely in charge for the next decade. Instead, Sunak is in a race against time to stop his party from being all but wiped out in a Labour landslide. 

Can the Prime Minister and his team turn things around? I’m wary of making predictions, especially after following Liz Truss into Number 10 myself last September in the belief that her premiership would go the distance. But the polling numbers suggest the best Sunak can hope for is an honourable defeat. 

While the party’s poll rating has improved since last year’s record low amid the mini-Budget backlash, it has settled at an average of 20 percentage points behind Labour. There is no sign of the gap closing despite Sunak’s best efforts, including his much-trumpeted renegotiation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. 

If the fanfare surrounding the Windsor Framework cannot dent Labour’s lead, what will it take? Sunak is betting on doing well enough with his five big priorities, while Sir Keir Starmer does his best to make himself a difficult target. 

While the Tories aspire to a fifth successive term in office, the Ipsos Political Monitor finds the majority of those polled say it will be time for a change. Voters have so far behaved in line with that in the few notable encounters they have had with the Tories under Sunak’s leadership. For example, the little-noticed West Lancashire by-election this February saw a 10 per cent swing to the Opposition. Meanwhile, the party is bracing itself for a battering at next month’s local elections. 

Whoever takes over from Sunak will have to reunite this coalition and take them forward

Yesteryear’s Tories would have taken such a baleful electoral situation as an excuse for a fresh bout of panic-driven leadership upheaval. By contrast, today’s Tories know there is no point, given the dire electoral straits. Parliamentarians who have previously been vocal in their scepticism of Sunak’s approach, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, are now loudly pledging their support. Some have been chastened by last year’s leadership merry-go-round into holding their tongue. Others don’t want to be accused of making the Tories’ poll rating any worse. They generally know there is no better option than to stick with Sunak and hope for the best. 

The overall result is that a sense of fatalism and resignation is spreading among the Tories. “After years of socialism under Sunak, we’ll have socialism under Starmer,” one former minister lamented to me. 

Talented Tory politicians are no longer gossiped about as potentially the next Prime Minister, but as the next Leader of the Opposition. Others are standing down early rather than go through the motions of waiting for voters to kick them out.

The Prime Minister’s supporters, such as Michael Gove, are on their own manoeuvres. The Sunak loyalist recently popped up to give his blessing to a project by the think tank Onward which seeks to “refine conservatism after our current economic and social model has reached the end of the road”. 

Given that the Conservatives have presided over “the current economic and social model” since 2010, it will be tricky for the party to renew itself in power. When their own time in office has reached the end of the road, the ensuing leadership contest will allow for a full-blown battle of ideas. 

This fight for intellectual hegemony will feel reminiscent of the Truss-Sunak face-off last year. Back then, their arguments — such as whether to cut taxes sooner or later — were theoretical. But now, both sides will have had major chances to show what kind of country they want to realise.

We can safely expect some familiar faces, such as Kemi Badenoch, in the fray. There will be points of agreement, including the need to get Britain building and the economy growing. But the means to achieve this will spark even spikier arguments than before. Sunak’s supporters will be ready to blame any defeat on the fallout from the controversy-rife Johnson era and the Truss mini-budget. 

In turn, Sunak’s sceptics will blame his managerialism, for example in raising taxes in the name of sound money. They will still be scarred by last year’s turmoil over Truss’s bid to cut the top rate of tax to where it was under most of New Labour.

Whoever takes over from Sunak will have to reunite this coalition and take them forward. If they manage it somehow, their place in the Conservative history books will be thoroughly earned.