Tory rebels call time on leadership challenge as Sunak limps on

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After months of plotting to oust Rishi Sunak by some on the right of the Conservative party, the rebellion fizzled out with barely a whimper this weekend despite a disastrous set of local election results.

Senior Tories had long predicted that bad losses could be enough to push their despondent colleagues over the edge, even those who could see that changing leader yet again before the general election could have dire electoral consequences.

"If your constituency chair is on the phone telling you that your local association has been wiped out, it's quite difficult to defend 'priced in'," one had said. "MPs aren't on the battlefield this time, it's like the Somme without the generals."

Yet within hours of the polls closing on Thursday night the Tory rebels had already concluded what many in Westminster had long suspected: they did not have the numbers to force a vote of no confidence.

The Blackpool South byelection result was announced in the early hours of Friday and although a Tory loss was widely expected, the 26% swing to Labour - the third highest in postwar history - and the surge in support for Reform sent a chill through Conservative headquarters.

Yet despite that, and poor showings for the Tories in the early council results, the anticipated angry outburst from Tory MPs did not follow.

Andrea Jenkyns, one of only two MPs to have publicly called for Sunak to quit, admitted that it was unlikely that other MPs would follow her in sufficient numbers to trigger a leadership contest.

"My stance is the same," she told the BBC. "But we are where we are and it is looking unlikely that the MPs are going to put the letters in, so we need to pull together. We're working with what we've got."

Nadine Dorries, a former cabinet minister and high-profile critic of the prime minister, said it would be "madness" to try to replace Sunak before the general election, adding that it would make "no difference" to the result.

Shortly before midday on Friday, some of the Tory rebels gave up and headed for the pub, perhaps fitting given that some believe that much of the leadership speculation was a result of "three-bottle lunches" between rebels and members of the press.

Tory MPs hostile to Sunak claimed he had been saved by Ben Houchen hanging on in the Tees Valley mayoralty, albeit with a significantly reduced majority that, if translated at the general election, would see the party lose all five seats in the region.

Yet there had been no real expectation - despite Downing Street's best attempts to spin the opposite - of Labour taking the Tees Valley. And when the Tories lost the West Midlands mayoralty, a much closer contest, the long-threatened coup still didn't take place.

Even Suella Braverman, whose allies are thought to be behind much of the plotting, admitted on the BBC that the Tories had run out of time to oust Sunak, adding that he now needs to "own this and fix it".

"Let me cut to the chase so no one wastes time over-analysing this: we must not change our leader. Changing our leader now won't work; the time to do so came and went," she added in the Sunday Telegraph, before prompting bemusement by adding: "The hole to dig us out of is the PM's, and it's time for him to start shovelling."

The so-called "grid of shit" - a series of explosive interventions designed to further destabilise the prime minister - planned for this week has now been halted, giving Sunak space to try to get back on the front foot.

His problem, however, is that very few of his own MPs, including loyalists, believe they can win. Instead, they are discussing the likely scale of defeat, amid fears that the Tories could be on course for a Canada 1993-style wipeout.

"Like most of my colleagues, I'm resigned to losing now," a former minister said. "I just don't think there's anything we can do to shift the dial. We'll keep trying - we have to - but I'm far from optimistic."

There are still some Tories who believe they can narrow the gap and even deprive Labour of a majority, particularly if the public starts to feel the benefit of economic changes and gives the government credit for it.

They take some comfort from polling showing there is no great love for Keir Starmer, as well as Labour's own local election woes - their loss of some progressive support and the lack of trust over Gaza now evident in seats with high proportions of Muslim voters.

Even Sunak himself has admitted, for the first time, that the best his party can expect is a hung parliament, with Labour the biggest party. "Let's not kid ourselves," the Tory former minister added. "It's now about the scale of losses."