Rebel Plot To Oust Rishi Sunak Fizzles Out Despite Ominous Local Election Results

Rishi Sunak is expected to avoid a Tory rebel bid to oust him as party leader and Prime Minister despite an ominous picture emerging from Thursday's local elections.

Plotters who for weeks have hoped and briefed that a dire set of results on 2 May would be enough to turn the parliamentary party against Sunak appear to have admitted defeat. It means he is all but guaranteed to lead the Tories into the next general election.

With more results to be announced this weekend, the Conservatives look set to lose over 500 council seats across the country, which is nearly half of the seats the party is contesting.

At the Blackpool South by-election, an enormous 26-point swing to Labour — the third biggest swing from the Conservatives to Labour in history — further crystallised the size of the hole which Sunak's beleaguered party finds itself in as the next general election approaches. 

The scale of the losses so far appears to corrobarate the Labour Party's large, double-digit leads in the opinion polls, and suggest that Keir Starmer's party remains on course to win the next general election, which the Prime Minister must call this calendar year.

"The Tories are still in as much trouble as they were a year ago," elections guru Sir John Curtice said on Friday. He added that the ruling Tory party, which according to the most recent Sky News opinion poll tracker is 21 per cent behind Labour on average, was at risk of suffering its worst set of local election results in around four decades.

Labour also celebrated a victory in Sunak's "backyard" when  David Skaith was elected the first mayor of York and North Yorkshire — a region which contains the Prime Minister's parliamentary constituency and other traditionally Conservative-voting seats.