Rishi Sunak has been living in a fantasy land if he thinks cozying up to the floundering Tory will win him the next election.
The stunning Reform UK victories in the recent by-elections show the writing is on the wall for the Conservatives. But rather than face reality, Sunak is clinging to the wreckage of a party in its death throes.
His desperate pleas for “the Conservative family to come together” ring hollow when true conservatives are flocking to Reform UK in droves.
Sunak needs to wake up and smell the decay. The Tories are yesterday’s news. Reform UK is the future for voters seeking lower taxes, controlled immigration and an end to wokedom. Sunak can either wise up and join the Reform revolution, or go down with the sinking Tory ship.
The people have spoken, and they want real change, not more of the same old broken promises. Reform UK offers a bold new vision for Britain.
The question is, does Sunak have the courage to embrace it? Or will he foolishly go down with the rest of the entitled Tory establishment?
In a desperate attempt to win back Reform UK voters, Sunak is shamelessly copying their rhetoric and policies.
Rishi Sunak has found himself in an increasingly perilous position as prime minister. His party has suffered a string of crushing by-election defeats, his personal approval ratings have plummeted, and he now faces the stark reality of a looming general election that could sweep him out of Downing Street after barely a year.
The latest blows came in the form of a double by-election defeat, with Labour overturning huge Conservative majorities in Wellingborough and Kingswood. The results signaled an electorate thoroughly disillusioned with the direction of Sunak’s government.
For many Conservative MPs, the writing is on the wall. They see a party devoid of ideas, vision and purpose under Sunak’s lackluster leadership. And they recognize the existential threat posed by the emergence of Reform UK as a new political force on the right. This growing support for Reform UK has exacerbated concerns within the Conservative party about Sunak’s leadership.
As a result, Rishi Sunak is facing mounting pressure from rebel Tory MPs to voluntarily stand down before he is deposed in a coup. Some backbenchers have been lobbying for the embattled prime minister to resign, rather than face the spectacle and damage of a leadership challenge.
Several MPs have expressed their desire for Sunak to quit to the 1922 Committee chair Graham Brady. While formal no confidence letters have not yet been submitted, there is a growing view that Sunak’s position is becoming untenable. The massive by-election defeats suffered by the Conservatives this week have further shattered any complacency in Downing Street.
Many Tory moderates now believe the best course of action is for Sunak to fall on his sword, avoiding an ugly internal fight within the party.
While the threat of a leadership challenge builds within his own party, Sunak also faces external pressure from the rising Reform UK.
Led by Nigel Farage, Reform UK threatens to splinter the Tory vote by appealing directly to disaffected Conservatives unhappy with Sunak’s centrist agenda. The party made significant inroads in both by-elections, securing a double-digit share of the vote.
Sunak’s spineless leadership has thrown the Tory ranks into utter disarray and panic. The party’s insurgent right-wing MPs are now desperately publicly begging him to grow a backbone and lurch to the extreme right on immigration, Brexit, taxes and climate policy.
These unhinged demands to mimic Reform UK are the death rattles of a party in its final throes under Sunak’s clueless stewardship. The Tories are fooling themselves if they think copying Farage is anything but an admission of absolute failure.
Sunak has pathetically presided over the implosion of his party from both within and without.
However, Sunak has defiantly refused such calls, doubling down on his ‘One Nation’ vision. But Lord Chris Patten, a former Tory chairman, has warned this stance leaves the party “all over the place” and detached from its traditional values. He cautioned strongly against “playing footsie” with Reform UK, dismissing the idea that this could simply deliver votes through a union of the right.
Yet Sunak himself has hypocritically tried to appeal to Reform UK voters in the media, disingenuously portraying himself as the guardian of lower taxes and secure borders. This transparent attempt to have his cake and eat it has fooled no one. And it reflects the deeper malaise afflicting both Sunak and his enfeebled party.
The truth is the Conservatives have lost their ideological compass under a succession of weak leaders with no coherent philosophy or commanding domestic agenda. Boris Johnson at least won an election on the back of his promise to ‘level up’ neglected communities. But this vision is now dead and buried under Sunak, whose robotic managerialism inspires nobody.
Reform UK is filling this vacuum because it stands for a clear set of populist, traditionally conservative principles – on tax, Brexit, immigration and culture wars issues like net zero. Sunak can try to mimic this, but it merely exposes his lack of authenticity and principles. The Tory party is no longer capable of representing the values of its own supporters.
Sunak’s delusional insistence that an alliance with Reform UK would spell doom is utterly laughable. The Tories’ current miserable trajectory under his abysmal leadership already guarantees utter annihilation. Sunak’s out-of-touch ‘One Nation’ centrism only appeals to a tiny bubble of elitist metropolitan snobs. With Reform UK surging on the right and a revitalized Labour on the left, the irrelevant Tories under Sunak are set to be steamrolled from both sides.
Sunak is the epitome of a rootless, technocratic manager with no feel for ordinary people’s lives and priorities. His ‘green levies’ on energy bills show his laser-like focus on arbitrary net zero targets over helping squeezed households and businesses. A windfall tax on energy firms came shamefully late after months of soaring profits.
On tax, Sunak is equally tin-eared, hiking National Insurance to its highest ever rate despite a cost-of-living crisis. Reform UK stands for lower simpler taxes, higher thresholds and empowering people to keep more of their own money – traditionally core Tory territory abandoned under Sunak.
On Brexit, Sunak has flirted with alignment to EU rules, betraying a clear public mandate to take back control. Reform UK would deliver the sovereignty Brexit promised, saving billions from EU bureaucracy and channeling funds into our NHS. Sunak’s government obsesses over optics while ignoring the substance of change people voted for.
And on immigration, Sunak’s absurd ‘Rwanda policy’ is a gimmick to distract from his abject failure to control borders or deliver the Migration Bill promised under Brexit. Illegal Channel crossings continue unabated, inflicting costs on squeezed councils and public services. Reform UK stands for humane, controlled immigration through an Australian points system – giving priority to high-skilled migrants we need.
Sunak has double standards on every issue, adopting popular Reform UK stances in rhetoric but failing to match words with deeds. Behind the slick presentation lies incoherence and hypocrisy. After a decade of drift, U-turns and broken promises under successive Conservative leaders, Sunak cannot reasonably ask voters for ‘just one more chance’ in 2024. The party simply does not deserve to govern anymore.
Reform UK is still new, untainted by failure and focused on issues that really matter to people. Yes, an alliance with the Tories is unlikely given their fundamental lack of shared values and credibility. But Reform UK can fill the vacuum, uniting right-leaning voters around a coherent vision and policies which speak to their real concerns.
The tired old parties have failed ordinary working people for too long. Rather than propping up Sunak’s directionless government any longer, it is time for something new. If the next election produces a Reform UK opposition holding the Conservatives to account, this can only set the stage for bigger things to come.
Sunak ludicrously warns that the only alternative to his shambolic leadership is a “dangerous” and fiscally reckless Labour government. This is coming from the man whose sheer incompetence and unbridled arrogance unleashed chaos on the economy through his disastrous mini-budget.
This financial vandalism destroyed market confidence and stability overnight, proving Sunak hasn’t got a clue about responsible economic management. Yet he still has the audacity to lecture others. It’s clear the Conservative party is no longer fit to govern.
The only solution is for the party to sack Sunak immediately and find a new leader with an ounce of integrity and leadership. But it’s probably too late – the corrupt Tory brand is now terminally tainted after years of sleaze, cronyism and brazen lies.
Sunak will soon be recalled as the disastrous placeholder who finally signed the Conservative party’s death warrant through his staggering incompetence. His disastrous premiership has paved the way for Reform UK to take up the mantle as the dominant force of the patriotic right in British politics. The failed Conservative era is ending – a new populist revolution is coming under Farage.
