Like him or not, Sunak is still the best option for the Tory party

Editorial: Simon Clarke launched a scathing attack on the prime minister – without considering what the future would look like for the Conservatives without him

(Dave Brown)

At first sight, it is difficult to know quite what the obscure former cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke thought he would achieve by calling for the prime minister to be replaced by someone else (as yet unspecified – an important detail if installing a new premier is being contemplated).

Presumably, he doesn’t have in mind such idiosyncratic personalities as, say, the rebarbative Lee Anderson, the eccentric Sir Desmond Swayne, or the lavishly coiffed Sir Michael Fabricant.

A little less fancifully, Sir Simon has long been recognised as Liz Truss’s vicar on Earth, yet his mentor herself has let it be known, presumably sincerely, that she doesn’t support his intervention. Even she might think it’s a little too early for a return to No 10.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, remains unavailable and in exile (though unusually and suspiciously quiet).

Sir Simon’s claims that the party faces a “massacre” and possible “extinction” at the next election are perfectly credible – and, to be fair to him, many of his colleagues would quietly agree with him. Some share the view that Rishi Sunak “does not get what Britain needs. And he is not listening to what the British people want”.

Even though Sir Simon is calling for a change of leader, and is close to Ms Truss, he denies being an agent for any contender: “I am speaking out because the stakes for our country and my party are too high at this moment to stay silent.”

However, it is not obvious how yet another leadership contest – nor any of the likely replacements for Mr Sunak – would transform their prospects. Indeed, what Sir Simon doesn’t seem to have considered is the possibility that the likes of Suella Braverman, the handiest option available on the backbenches, would not be popular enough with the electorate to quickly rein in Labour’s commanding polling lead.

Sir Simon’s pungent letter certainly doesn’t seem to have ignited a wider rebellion. Even the most cranky and bravely Spartan elements of the Tory party have kept quiet, while Priti Patel and David Davis have publicly rejected Sir Simon’s advice.

Other colleagues, off the record, are less generous: “He needs to go home, have a lie down in a dark room, and repeatedly say ‘I must take the fight to Labour’ until it finally sinks in.” At Prime Minister’s Questions, no Tory backbencher chose to make any coded criticism of Mr Sunak, let alone tell him his time is up.

For the time being, the Clarke rebellion has failed, and he joins Dame Andrea Jenkyns as the only Conservative MP calling for Mr Sunak to quit – not bad for a prime minister whose personal ratings lag behind those of Sir Keir Starmer (routinely called “uncharismatic”) and are around the depths previously plumbed by Mr Johnson and Ms Truss.

The two parliamentary revolts on the Rwanda bill which attracted so much attention also turned out to be flops. There does seem to be only a limited appetite for a gamble on a new leader at this stage of parliament, and. of course, the infighting and division would only alienate more voters and diminish Tory chances even further.

If a fresh leadership election were held according to an expedited version of the current rules, it would take some weeks, in which time the country would be lumbered with another caretaker administration. The party membership, as is their habit, will then choose the most extreme of the contenders to form a government. None of that is going to impress the electorate.

It is, though, briefly worth pursuing the political thought experiment implicitly suggested by Sir Simon. So: if Ms Braverman were to be appointed prime minister, by the end of February, with Ms Truss as chancellor and Kemi Badenoch as home secretary, they would then have time to implement their dream policies before a November election.

There would be tax cuts, this time funded by deep slashes to public spending; the UK would withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights, with a backlash from the EU and the collapse of the Good Friday Agreement; net zero would be scrapped, and there would be a riot of repressive and performative “anti-woke” measures.

And then four things would happen. First, the centre of the party would refuse to pass the relevant legislation; there would be a severe reaction in the markets to another reckless Budget; the small boats would continue to cross the English Channel; and the voters would be repelled by cuts in public services and divisive, reactionary policies.

The verdict on the government led by Ms Braverman on election day would be an even more emphatic rejection of the Conservatives by the people, meaning a bigger massacre of MPs and the arrival – much like a meteor – of their much-feared extinction event.

Things may look bleak now for the Tories, but they shouldn’t fall into the same trap as the one that has captured Sir Simon – and assume that things couldn’t get any worse for them. They very easily could if they ditched Mr Sunak. Like him or not, he’s the best they’ve got.