The Red Wall poll which suggests it might be curtains for Boris Johnson

Can Boris recover from the storm of partygate? The Prime Minister has pinned his hopes on being exonerated – or at least not entirely condemned – by Sue Gray in her investigation into Downing Street festivities during the pandemic. And yet, whatever she says, the writing might already be on the Red Wall for Boris. 

Support for the Prime Minister has collapsed in those constituencies which handed Boris his 80-seat majority in the 2019 election, according to new polling. Labour now enjoys an 11-point advantage over the Tories in the Red Wall.  Crucially for the PM, the main reason given for many voters in turning their backs on the Conservatives are ongoing revelations about partygate. The poll of 518 people, conducted by J.L. Partners, shows that if a snap election were to be held now, the Tories would cling on to only three of the 54 seats they seized from Labour: Dudley North, Bassetlaw and Great Grimsby.

The numbers make for dire reading for the PM – and could be a further call to action for wavering Red Wall Tory MPs who are terrified their stay in parliament will be short-lived if a change of leader is not imminent. While only seven Tory MPs have gone on the record to say they have submitted a letter calling for a vote of no confidence in the PM, dozens more have spoken out publicly to criticise Boris and his handling of the partygate row.

Tory MPs speak of being inundated with furious correspondence from constituents calling for the PM to go. For now, many MPs are biding their time, waiting for the release of Gray's report. But how long can they hold out as their inboxes fill up? 

Ian Levy, the first Conservative to represent Blyth Valley since the constituency was created in 1950, is one of those to have spoken out. He said: 

‘I understand the real anger at reports that those in power were not abiding by the rules. The public deserves better than this.’

Antony Higginbotham, another Tory Red Waller, echoed those remarks, telling his constituents in Burnley: 

‘I am as angry and disappointed as you are. This whole saga has damaged trust in politics’

It seems hard to see how a report from Gray is going to help matters for the PM. His best hopes lie in her concluding that the PM was not aware of the festivities taking place in Downing Street during the height of the pandemic. Even if Boris is not personally blamed, for many the distinction between the PM and No. 10 Downing Street is non-existent: if Boris can't control what is going on under his own watch in his own home, is he really the man to run the country? Is he up for the job of leading the Tories into the next election?

More and more Tory MPs, in private, if not in public, appear to be concluding that the answer to both those questions is that he is not. 

Perhaps the most devastating indictment of the PM comes, not from the usual suspects who have called for the PM to go ever since he took office, but from the PM's friends and allies. Danny Kruger is a staunch ally of the PM; he worked as Boris Johnson’s political secretary. Nonetheless, he made his feelings about partygate apparent when he gave his response to the revelations last week:

'The broader issue, and the subject of many of my letters, concerns the character and competence of the Prime Minister. I am sorry that so many people, many of them lifelong Conservative voters, have decided they cannot vote for us again while Boris Johnson is leader. They represent the respectable tendency which is the foundation of our party and indeed our country: the people who believe in following the rules, being straight with people and being accountable for your conduct. It is a very bad moment when so many people like this lose faith in a Conservative Prime Minister.'

Kruger did not call for Boris to step down. Instead he suggested that what the PM needed was a chief of staff, cabinet secretary and deputy PM who can help him get a grip. But damning polls – such as this latest survey of Red Wall voters – suggest that the PM hiring and firing those around him won't do much to alleviate the growing fury of voters who handed Boris his majority in the first place.