In a worrying sign for Rishi Sunak, MPs fear local elections in May will be a wipeout for the party after months of dismal poll ratings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many Conservatives believe the vote will be a crucial turning point for the Prime Minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries told the Express many MPs are alarmed \u00adat the prospect of losing theirseats at the next election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The former Cabinet minister said there is only one person who is a proven winner who can \u201ckeep them in their seats\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ms Dorries said: \u201cI think the local elections in May are going to be absolutely difficult for us but Rishi won\u2019t walk.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt will take a little bit longer than that. I think there is a chance if the polls keep sliding by this time next year we will see Boris Johnson back in Downing Street.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany of the \u00adpeople who were anti-Boris realise they are nothing without their seat.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey have no voice, no one is interested in what they will have to say, not even down at the job centre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One senior Tory said the party \u201crespects\u201d Mr Sunak but \u201cdoes not love him\u201d and will continue with its ruthless streak of dispatching leaders if they are unpopular with voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tory donor Lord Cruddas said he has been privately encouraged by some MPs to press ahead with his campaign to give Conservative members a greater say over the leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is pushing for constitutional change in the party that would stop leaders being imposed, or ousted, against the will of the grassroots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The peer said Tory members are still \u201cvery angry\u201d over what happened to Mr Johnson. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord Cruddas, who heads the Conservative Democratic Organisation campaigning for constitutional change in the party, said a snap ballot should be held by the party to find a leader that the membership endorses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cIf the members back Rishi, then we all back Rishi.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord Cruddas said the party cannot win an election unless it has a leader backed by the grassroots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said: \u201cI\u2019ve spoken to senior MPs who are encouraging me to carry on with this campaign.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe feeling is let\u2019s wait and see how the May local elections go.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut I don\u2019t think the party can wait that long. We can\u2019t sit back and watch the party destroyed in the polls because the longer it goes on the harder it is to claw back lost ground.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no Rishi bounce. I don\u2019t see how the Conservative Party can just cross their fingers and hope things recover. How long can the Conservative Party ignore the polls?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Tory MP said: \u201cTwice my \u00adcolleagues have collectively said \u2018We don\u2019t want Boris and we don\u2019t want Liz\u2019. It\u2019s very disappointing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn many ways the dream scenario is to lose the election by five or ten seats, Boris comes back and leads the party into the next election, which would end up taking place within a year. And he would storm it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a worrying sign for Rishi Sunak, MPs fear local elections in May will be a wipeout for the party after months of dismal poll ratings. Many Conservatives believe the vote will be a crucial turning point for the Prime Minister. Boris loyalist Nadine Dorries told the Express many MPs are alarmed \u00adat the prospect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":22745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[5090,157,3782,8349,10387,8924,5110,10000,323,2512,913,6718,685,911,8057,9974,10634,6220,278,2402,6754,11973,3174,5266,912,7972,11325,8302,4890,255,6594,6348,10943,3954,594],"class_list":["post-28747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-cabinet","tag-cabinet-minister","tag-campaign","tag-chance","tag-christmas","tag-conservative","tag-conservative-party","tag-conservatives","tag-democratic","tag-downing","tag-downing-street","tag-election","tag-fear","tag-leadership","tag-lost","tag-love","tag-mp","tag-mps","tag-nadine-dorries","tag-one","tag-prime-minister","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-snap","tag-storm","tag-street","tag-sunak","tag-tories","tag-tory","tag-tory-mp","tag-us","tag-watch","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}