The Conservatives are braced for painful byelection results in a vote on Thursday that could become a damning verdict on Rishi Sunak’s ability to win a broad enough coalition of voters at the next election to retain his party’s majority.
The party could lose all three of the constituencies that are up for grabs – which each have significantly different demographics that the Tories would need to win – with the prospect of hanging on to just one being touted by senior ministers as a victory.
Tory party insiders said that even if they managed to hang on to Selby and Ainsty, which has a 20,000 majority, a huge swing to Labour in the bellwether seat could indicate what is to come at the general election.
However, retaining this constituency – even with a substantially reduced majority – or Boris Johnson’s former Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat could give them hope that Sunak could pull it back next year. One cabinet minister said: “Let’s be honest, even hanging on to one would be a win for us.”
Despairing Conservative MPs, however, warned that the government could find itself “in the death throes” if thousands of voters in the vastly different seats in Somerset, west London and North Yorkshire gave them a pummelling at the polls.
The byelection in Somerton and Frome is an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats to win a seat from the Conservatives, with some in Ed Davey’s party seeing victory there as a near certainty. Neither Sunak nor the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, have visited the constituency.
In a broadcast clip while on a visit to Warwickshire, Sunak refused to rule out holding an immediate reshuffle after days of speculation that he could rejig his top team to try to reset the narrative after what were expected to be poor results.
His press secretary said byelections were “very difficult” for incumbent governments in what appeared to be an expectation management exercise. “The election we are most focused on is the general election,” she added.
In a bid to boost party morale before polling day, Sunak addressed Tory MPs at a meeting of the backbench 1922 Committee. Afterwards, one MP, Jonathan Gullis, said the prime minister appeared to acknowledge the byelections would be “a tough battle” and had urged them to help get out the Conservative vote.
During the behind closed doors meeting of Tory MPs, it was claimed Sunak had joked about his private swimming pool. Several of those present said he was looking forward to using it over the summer – but that diving in at the deep end might feel too much like the day job.
There was no mention by the prime minister of whether a cabinet reshuffle could come as early as this Friday, after fevered speculation – including by the outgoing defence secretary, Ben Wallace. A No 10 source dismissed Wallace’s comments, saying: “I don’t think cabinet ministers are told when reshuffles are going to happen.”
James Cleverly also issued an unusual public appeal to Sunak to keep his role in the next reshuffle. The foreign secretary told the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday he would only be dragged out of his job “with nail marks down the parquet flooring”, after speculation he could be moved to the defence brief to replace Wallace.
In a significant departure from the normal ministerial practice of not commenting on reshuffles, Cleverly told the US conference: “If anyone in the UK is watching, listening, particularly you prime minister, I very much want to stay put … I very much want to stay put as foreign secretary. It’s a job that I love, I think it’s an important job.”
He added: “This is the job that I know, the job that I like to think I’m good at, and the job that I absolutely adore. So my plan is to stay put. If I’m going to be dragged out at some point in the future, you’ll see the nail marks down the parquet flooring in my office.”
Labour sources said that it would “extraordinary” for the party to overturn the Conservatives’ huge majority in Selby, requiring a 17.9% swing which would be greater than Tony Blair had achieved in the 1997 election.
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They said there was a “narrow route” to such a victory if the Tory vote was depressed and turnout was low. Party officials have been using the campaign to gather data ahead of the constituency boundary changes at the election, which will create what is theoretically a more winnable seat.
There are frayed nerves in both camps over the Uxbridge seat in west London, which was not even won by Labour in 1997 and where the Tories hold a 7,000 majority.
One Labour source said: “I go through days where I think we are doomed, and then days where I think we are actually going to do this. But it’s going to be close and I don’t think it is going to be a huge victory for either party.”
The Tories have been focusing on the ultra-low emissions zone policy of the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, which is unpopular locally, but some party insiders believe the issue is being overplayed and voters are more concerned about the cost of living, for which the Conservatives could be blamed.
They could also suffer from what one senior Tory MP, Steve Brine, called the “long Boris” effect, with voters punishing the government in Uxbridge amid anger over the scandal-ridden former prime minister. The pattern could be repeated in Selby where Nigel Adams, a close Johnson ally, has just vacated the seat.
Taking either seat would be a boost for Starmer after a difficult week in which he has been challenged by his own party over his refusal to make any unfunded spending commitments, including scrapping the two-child benefit cap. Failing to make any headway would lead to further questions over his strategy.
The byelections come as the prime minister’s approval ratings hit an all-time low, with just a quarter of Britons surveyed by YouGov holding a favourable view of Sunak, and two-thirds having an unfavourable opinion. His net favourability has tumbled to minus 40, the lowest level since he took office, the polling firm said.
Losing all three seats would make Sunak the first prime minister since Labour’s Harold Wilson in 1968 to lose three byelections in a single day. He faces the prospect of two more tricky byelections in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth, which are held by Nadine Dorries and Chris Pincher respectively, later in the year.
