Rishi, it’s not the 1980s anymore

The stench of death clings to Boris Johnson. Bury South MP Christian Wakeford has crossed the floor to join Labour. David Davis has told him to resign ‘in the name of God’. Tory MPs reportedly continue to hand in letters of no confidence to the 1922 Committee. Once they reach 54, there will be a vote of confidence. Fresh polling on the Red Wall, conducted by JL Partners for Channel 4, puts Labour at 48 per cent and 37 per cent for the Tories, a near inversion of the 2019 election result. Sir Graham Brady — and Sir Keir — should expect some more knocks on their doors.

The revelation that Downing Street held lockdown-breaking parties, while the rest of the country was banned from being next to dying loved ones, is anathema to Red Wall voters. They broke the habit of a lifetime to vote Tory because they felt betrayed by Labour and alienated from the political class.

Boris diehards may sigh that it was ‘just drinks after work’. But lifelong Labour voters who made the heavy decision to vote Tory in 2019, and incurred the scorn of friends and family members in doing so, have been left feeling betrayed and even a little embarrassed.

So the Conservative party, as is their wont when fear sets in, is coalescing around the idea that dumping the leader is the answer. In the short term, it might well be. Installing a credible alternative with no connection to Partygate could help the Tories narrow Labour’s polling lead. But is there a credible alternative?

Rishi Sunak is the favourite of the Tory press, and it’s not hard to see why. Young, telegenic, an ethnic minority and known to favour tax cuts, he is a modern face for the Thatcherite dogma the Tories still can’t break free from. Yet choosing Sunak would be a sign the party is stuck in the eighties. Big government is no longer our main problem and tax cuts aren’t the panacea they once seemed. True-blue Tory voters speak more about identity politics, threats to freedom of speech and the tide of ‘wokery’. They don’t care most about scrapping the BBC licence fee or promising to crack down on illegal immigration. They think it’s just what the government should be doing anyway, not bone-throwing to placate them during a crisis.

The other favourite — Liz Truss — suffers from the same failure of diagnosis. The leadership contest is likely to be a competition between Tories to out-Thatcherite each other, throwing red meat to the membership. But the Tories’ 2019 voters have wider convictions than free-market fundamentalism. If Boris goes, his successor — be it Sunak or someone else — will have to hold together a broad coalition, especially with the drift of affluent voters away from the party. Boris Johnson is a problem for the Conservatives, but he’s far from the only, or even biggest, one.