Sunak faces fresh by-election misery this week, with the House of Commons poised to approve a six-week suspension for ex-minister Peter Bone.
MPs are expected to wave through a motion to see the former deputy leader of the Commons face a recall petition in his constituency.
The move comes less than a week after the Conservatives suffered historic defeats at the hands of Labour in by-elections in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
Bone, the MP for Wellingborough, was stripped of the Tory whip over claims of bullying and sexual misconduct against a staff member.
On one occasion, he is said to have exposed his genitals to the employee in his early 20s when the pair shared a hotel room on a work trip to Madrid.
Bone has denied the findings by Parliament’s Independent Expert Panel, insisting “none of the misconduct allegations against me ever took place”.
MPs will on Wednesday vote to approve the recommendation of the standards watchdog that Bone be suspended from the Commons for six weeks.
Any sanction of longer than ten days automatically triggers a recall petition, which, if signed by more than 10 per cent of constituents, results in a by-election.
Labour is confident the threshold would be met in Wellingborough, handing it another chance to inflict more pain at the ballot box on Sunak.
The market town, in Northamptonshire, has long been considered a safe Tory seat, with Bone winning it by a comfortable 18,540 margin in 2019.
But that majority is smaller than the ones overturned by the Labour Party just last week in Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire. The seat has been held in the past by Labour when Blair was in power but lost the seat to the Tories in the 2005 election, so the idea of a Labour victory given the less than optimistic view many of the public hold toward Sunak and his Party is not outwith the realms of possibility.
One opinion poll in August this year made bleak reading for Sunak, with several high-profile Tories facing losing their seats at the next general election if the poll is correct.
According to the BMG survey for the i newspaper, five cabinet ministers and several ‘big beasts’ face defeat, with Labour headed for an overall majority.
Those at risk include energy security and net zero secretary Grant Shapps, Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt, as well as former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Giving the party a 15-point lead over the Tories, the poll puts Labour at 44%, the Conservatives at 29%, and the Lib Dems at 10%, with just two-thirds of those who voted Tory in the 2019 General Election stating they would do so again.
Another headache for Sunak is what appears to be surging support for the Reform party, with polls earlier in the year showing that Support for Reform UK has doubled in the Blue Wall since Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister. Richard Tice’s party has increased its vote share to six per cent across 42 heartland Conservative seats in the affluent South.
At the recent Tamworth by-election, the Reform Party took 5.4 per cent of the vote, beating both the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, who only managed 1.6 per cent. The Reform vote amounted to 1,373 votes, and while Labour won the seat, they only won by 1,316, pushing the Tories into second place. The Reform vote was obviously (along with the 1,016 votes won by Britain First and UKIP) the deciding factor in the Tories’ loss, assuming that most of the Reform voters would have been likely to vote Conservative at some point in the past. In the other recent by-election in Mid-Bedfordshire, Reform again polled well, taking 3.7 per cent of the vote or 1,487 votes. Labour won the seat with a majority of only 1,192 votes.
Tice, the Reform Party leader, has stated that he will stand candidates in every seat in the UK in the coming general election and that his primary purpose is to make sure that after 13 years of failure, the Conservatives are removed from power. A move that he sees as essential in part of the process of turning the Nation around and, as he says, saving Britain.
While Reform is unlikely to win any seats in Westminster, it can certainly be effective in holding the balance of power to allow Labour to take seats from the Tories. Especially in the North of England, where the Brexit promises of the Conservatives have not been lived up. Promises that got voters in what were once Labour party strongholds to vote Conservative in droves, many for the first time. Reform, with its Brexit party pedigree, is well-positioned to pick up many of those disaffected Voters.
With ongoing unrest within his party ranks, what appears to be a resurgent labour Party both North and South of the border and Reform set to campaign for the Tories’ destruction, it seems that Sunak’s woes can only get worse in the run-up to the next Westminster election.
