It is perfectly normal for a Tory MP to open off Prime Minister’s questions (PMQs) with a toady, softball type of question lobbed up for the Prime Minister to hit out of the park and get the weekly exchange nicely warmed up.
But when former actor cum Tory backbencher Giles Watling got to his feet today there was a special poignance about it that created some mirth (at least on the benches opposite).
It was not Watling’s previous roles as the vicar in the sitcom Bread or as Major Twistleton-Smythe in Allo Allo, that caused the humour but the predicament he finds himself in the current nexus of British politics and how that now also affects Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.
Watling is the current Conservative MP for Clacton on the Essex coast which has come into focus in recent weeks as the constituency where Nigel Farage is pondering whether to run in to make a comeback.
As Richard Tice put it to Express.co.uk: “It’s Clacton or nowhere.”
Watling is a former Remainer holding one of the most Brexit supporting seats in the country. Added to that he is a Sunak loyalist.
His local party tried to deselect him as the candidate but after an intervention from party bosses at CCHQ this was reversed leading to one or two resignations.
Added to that Clacton was twice won for UKIP by Douglas Carswell – so has a history of backing the populist, patriotic right.
It is seen as the perfect target for Farage. Watling was predictably supportive in his question to Sunak which can be summed up as “haven’t you done brilliantly to get inflation down.”
It was the moment when Watling said he had tried to help his constituents with the cost of living that he was forced to pause because of some fairly cruel sniggering.
But in truth Watling, Sunak and the Tories are not laughing about the Reform UK threat. It is the reason that the mood among MPs seems to be to remove Sunak but it is also a crisis which could see the Conservatives wiped out to less than 100 seats.
Some even want it to happen.
Express.co.uk has been told that a faction of Tory members with money in the Seven Oaks constituency in Kent have been trying to persuade Farage to run against their own MP, another Sunak ally and cabinet minister, Laura Trott because they want to split the vote and have her ousted.
But it means that if Sunak is replaced there is now open speculation that a candidate from the right – Suella Braverman, Robert Jenrick or Dame Priti Patel – will need to make a deal with Farage and Reform UK and even invite them into the Tories.
As one Opposition MP noted: “Farage and the Tory right have been playing footsy for so long now, they have got to come together at some point.”
No doubt such a move would see some from the One Nation group on the left leave the party in disgust like some did over Brexit. But for others the cold maths does not lie.
The regional breakdown of the Whitestone poll commissioned by Lady McAlpine confirmed that the Tories are losing votes to Reform UK in a big way and that moving to the right was the best way of minimising the damage and even having some chance of winning.
Just taking the East of England where the Clacton constituency is as an example underlines the Conservative crisis.
The Tories traditionally dominate this region but now are reduced to 23 percent – a full 16 points behind Labour’s 39 percent. This may explain why Sir Brandon Lewis has decided not to try to defend his Great Yarmouth seat in Norfolk. Worse still though, 17 percent now say they would vote Reform in that region.
If you look at the Conservative 2019 vote in the East of England – Essex, Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Suffolk – only 48 percent would still vote Tory and 28 percent have switched to Reform. Many more simply will not vote.
Other regions are even worse with up to 31 percent of Tory voters going to Refom in some parts of the country.
It means that the split vote could let Labour win swathes of seats and leave the Conservatives on an historic low.
All these results were received before Lee Anderson switched to Reform – they are even worse now.
If Farage stands in Clacton as Reform’s leader that will boost his party’s vote even more. So when Clacton’s MP asked Sunak today about how things are getting so much better, the narrative behind that question was not only about the survival of that MP or the government but the Conservatives as a functioning party.
