Did Rishi Sunak deliberately snub Susan Hall by not voting in London?

The Independent revealed that Rishi Sunak did not vote for Susan Hall in London even though he legally could have done. Political editor David Maddox looks at why this may have been a deliberate snub

The Conservatives’ Susan Hall gives her speech at City Hall after losing the London mayoral election (PA Wire)

With the catastrophic local election results suffered by the Tories this weekend, Rishi Sunak’s leadership has again become the focus of attention.

It was bad enough to win fewer council seats than the Lib Dems by losing almost 500 out of the 985 the Tories were defending. And the defeat of West Midlands mayor Andy Street by Labour’s Richard Parker was a stunning blow.

But amid the chaos and recriminations, nothing seems to have symbolised the prime minister’s own deficiencies more than the revelation that he was sitting in London during the elections on Thursday but did not get round to voting for his party’s candidate for London mayor, Susan Hall.

There are no good excuses for why Sunak might have snubbed the hapless Hall, and the debacle has reopened questions about his future.

A question of election law and political choices

Normally, party leaders and major candidates use going to vote as a photo opportunity on election day. In London, Sadiq Khan went to the polls with his wife and dog, while Labour leader Keir Starmer also invited the cameras. But there was no picture of Sunak casting his vote.

When The Independent asked Downing Street how the prime minister had voted, the reply came: “He postal voted in Yorkshire.”

In other words, he cast his vote for the defeated Keane Duncan, the Tory mayoral candidate for York and North Yorkshire, which covers his Richmond constituency.

This led to a flurry of claims from MPs and Tory activists that Sunak could have voted in both places. In general elections for parliament, voters with a house in more than one constituency have to choose one place to vote. However, in local elections, people can vote in more than one area on the same day if they are registered there.

However, the Electoral Commission says on its website that the general-election rule of only voting in one place applies in the case of London mayoral and assembly elections. What is unclear is whether that applies in respect of having two addresses in different parts of London, or to taking part in mayoral elections in other parts of the country.

One former minister told The Independent: “I have checked the legislation and I cannot see what would prevent the prime minister from voting in both Yorkshire and London. The Electoral Commission advice is not completely clear.”

Most MPs have interpreted the Electoral Commission’s advice as meaning they can vote in two areas as long as they are not voting twice in London.

Downing Street refused to comment on whether the prime minister knew about the quirks of electoral law. Nevertheless, the angry Tory MPs responding to the revelation within seconds of it being published did know.

What is clear is that the prime minister probably thought he could only vote in one of the mayoral races, and chose Duncan over Hall.

Does Sunak think Hall is racist?

Sunak is Britain’s second ethnic minority prime minister and the first non-white politician to reside in Downing Street, and he has made it clear that he has little time for prejudice, whether it is racism or Islamophobia. This is why the former Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson, now plying his trade at Reform UK, was given short shrift over his comments about Labour’s London mayor Sadiq Khan, in which he suggested that Khan was being controlled by Islamists.

Sadiq Khan pats his dog Luna as they pose for the media he arrives to vote in London last Thursday (AP)

Certainly, Hall’s campaign against Khan was negative and at times bordered on pandering to prejudice against the incumbent mayor. Labour has described her outright as “Islamophobic and racist”, and while her campaign hotly denied this, there has never been much pushback from Downing Street.

This has led to speculation that Sunak may, in fact, have understood the electoral law, but did not want to be seen voting for his party’s London mayoral candidate, who in addition to the charges of racism was facing criticism for being weak and the wrong person to try to win back London for the Tories.

On Sunday morning, transport secretary Mark Harper told Camilla Tominey on GB News that the prime minister had “criss-crossed London” with Hall. But as Tominey noted, he had not put a cross on the ballot paper for her.

Deeper problems for the Tories in London

As the disastrous result in London began to unfurl with each successive declaration on Saturday, the former minister for London, Paul Scully, was giving interviews to broadcasters and The Independent.

Scully is the man some think should have been the Tory candidate for London mayor. But he was kept off the shortlist for London party members to select from last year, in an extraordinary chain of events that saw all the main contenders politically assassinated.

Insiders with knowledge of the shortlisting process suggested that the meeting had included polling on why a government minister should not be the candidate. Hall got the same number of votes as Scully, but was reportedly put on the shortlist because those involved realised they were about to present an all-male list to members.

When the favourite, Daniel Korski, was forced to step down because of historical allegations, the party leadership had an opportunity to reopen the whole process, but Sunak and his party chair at the time, Greg Hands, refused to do so. Lawyer Mozammel Hossain’s campaign then fell apart, leaving Hall the clear winner.

Scully has blamed “a weak London party” and a “lack of leadership and vision” from the top – which means from Sunak. Many others share that assessment.

The Independent has recently revealed how cabinet ministers were urging Sunak to intervene and install a candidate who could win, with many wanting Reform UK’s Howard Cox, who for decades has worked with the Tories on the Fair Fuel UK campaign.

Scully said: “We have let down 9 million Londoners. We did not take this election seriously.”

No help for Susan Hall

There was worse to come, though. Having allowed Hall to become the candidate, Tory campaign chiefs left her with virtually no support or resources.

For much of the run-up to the election, she had a part-time press officer and a few researchers she brought from the London Assembly. Hall sat in a bunker under CCHQ, had no donors giving her money, and had to rely on the goodwill of others to go knocking on doors around London.

Again, this lack of support is being laid at the door of Sunak, whose non-vote appeared to underline that he did not care if London remained in the hands of the Labour Party.

The Tories thought London was winnable

The problem with this lack of interest from Sunak and his campaign team is that, despite the horrendous national polls, many Tories believed London could have been wrestled away from Labour.

The by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip revealed that Sadiq Khan’s expansion of the ultra-low-emissions zone to the whole of London had made him extremely unpopular. He was already polling negatively, and issues such as a spike in knife crime and protests were also angering many voters.

But to take advantage of this, the Tories needed a focused campaign with a positive vision and a strong candidate. In the end, under Sunak’s leadership, they were provided with none of these things.

As one Tory MP noted: “There is no question involving winning in which Susan Hall is the answer.”

Why Sunak’s failure to vote in London is important

The prime minister is, as the Scots would say, “on a shoogly peg”. In other words, his leadership of the party is under threat, and even if he survives he seems unable to galvanise his MPs or party members into fighting the next general election. His failure to vote in London shows that he is either not on top of basic details (of electoral law in this case) or simply cannot be bothered.

One Tory MP, who believed Sunak could vote in both mayoral elections, furiously described how they had been delivering leaflets and trying to get the vote out up to the last minute, “but our prime minister cannot even be bothered to vote”.

It plays into the image of a man who is looking for a getaway next career in California, and has given up on running the country or trying to win an election.

It may well be that the coup some plotters hope to spring will not happen, but Sunak’s lackadaisical approach to politics is now actively damaging his party and crushing its morale.