Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Rishi Sunak sought to demonstrate high spirits as he broke away from his foundering election campaign in the UK for a two-day G7 summit on the Puglian riviera on Thursday.
Asked by a reporter about seeming “down in the dumps” after a deflated performance at a televised event in Grimsby on Wednesday night, where he had faced tough questions on his broken promises, the prime minister said: “Definitely not.”
As his Conservative party continues to trail Labour by about 20 points in the polls just three weeks before the election, Sunak dismissed any suggestion of being snubbed by allies at the summit who may believe he is on his way out of office.
“I’ve already sat down with Emmanuel, spoken to Olaf about a bunch of things,” he said of brush-by encounters with Emmanuel Macron, president of France, and Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz on the first day of the international meeting.
Where Sunak was prepared to acknowledge a setback was in relation to the conduct of his close parliamentary aide Craig Williams MP, who is under investigation by the Gambling Commission after placing a £100 bet on the date of the snap election three days before the prime minister announced it.
Sunak said it was “very disappointing” and highlighted Williams’ own admission that it had been a “huge error of judgment”.
Tory insiders said the episode was seen as a betrayal by Williams and had dealt a psychological blow to other members of Sunak’s inner circle.
The prime minister was more upbeat discussing the $50bn loan to Ukraine that the group of advanced economies agreed, which he said “the UK have been leading on” for months. He also welcomed the publication of Labour’s manifesto, which he said contained “no big ideas”.
Declaring that he would still be “fighting very hard” until polling day on July 4, Sunak said he wanted to ensure voters knew they would be “saddled” with higher taxes by a Labour government.
Nonetheless, earlier on Thursday former prime minister Lord David Cameron was forced to insist he not did feel pity for Sunak. “I don’t feel sorry for him because he’s a very effective prime minister who wants to go on doing his job,” he said.
While the foreign secretary told the BBC that the polls did not “look good” for the Conservatives, he argued “they didn’t look very good in 2015 when I won the election”.
Despite Cameron’s reflections, insiders said morale in the Tory campaign had continued to nosedive. One Conservative figure said it felt as though many campaigners had “entirely given up”, adding it had not gone unnoticed how low a profile many cabinet ministers were keeping.
The party had “smashed the glass with ‘super majority’ and now everything is a race to get 120 or more seats to ensure there’s no wipe out,” the insider said.
The remark was a reference to defence secretary Grant Shapps on Wednesday highlighting the prospect of a potential Labour “supermajority” and stressing the importance of “accountability” in that scenario. Shapps’ comments were viewed in some quarters as conceding a Tory defeat on July 4.
Meanwhile, activists in some seats are no longer bothering to turn up to canvassing sessions because they view a spell in opposition as a fait accompli, party insiders said.
As attention turns to the future of the party after the election, Nigel Farage said he would be willing to lead a merged Reform-Conservative grouping. The Reform leader predicted “something new is going to emerge on the centre-right”, telling LBC the governing party “may well be dead” after the election.
Farage said he felt “capable of leading a national opposition to a Labour party with a big majority where I can stand up and hold them to account”, adding: “I would be prepared to lead the centre-right in this country.”
A reverse takeover would be welcomed by some on the Tory right, who venerate the arch-Brexiter and believe their party’s travails stem from its failure to advocate a more hardline approach on immigration, tax and cultural issues.
Suella Braverman, who served as home secretary under Sunak, said this week the Conservatives should embrace Farage. There was “not much difference” between his policies and those of the Tories, she said, issuing a rallying cry to colleagues to “unite the right”.
