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As Labour declares victory in the UK general election, Rishi Sunak is on course to preside over the Tories’ worst ever general election result. As the results pour in, the Conservative losses are piling up with defense secretary Grant Shapps, education secretary Gillian Keegan and chief whip Simon Hart among the senior members of Sunak’s team to lose their seat. Sunak and Jeremy Hunt may have clung on but the Tory Party is losing all over the place — from the northeast and Wales to Surrey and Oxfordshire.
The recriminations are well under way
On current results, it looks as though Labour has won around 36 percent of the vote but will have a majority of around 170. Meanwhile, the Tories have won around 22 percent of the vote — with Reform not far behind on 17 percent. It’s clear from the results so far that the Reform Party has had a devastating effect on the Tories. So far, there are four Reform MPs — but in many more seats the Reform vote share appears to have been the factor that meant some Tory candidates, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, lost their seats to Labour.
There was initially some relief for the Tories when the exit poll came through. Not because it was a good result — but because some MRP polls had suggested the Tories could be reduced to a fringe party in double digits. There was talk that the Liberal Democrats could be the second-largest party and the BBC could soon deprive the Tories of coverage on account of the party’s low vote share. This nightmare scenario has been avoided — but the reality isn’t that much better.
As the results have come in, it has been a sobering experience for Tory politicians. Some candidates describe themselves as feeling numb over the result. Others are simply angry they were put in this position — made to fight an election they thought was a bad idea. It’s not just the “big names” who have lost their seats, it’s the losses in areas that have been Conservative for 100 years, such as Chichester. Then there’s Reform gains in former Tory strongholds such as Great Yarmouth. It means the recriminations are well under way.
Former cabinet minister Brandon Lewis has hit out at Sunak’s decision to go for a July election — a decision he described as madness when many candidates had not been selected and the CCHQ machine was not ready. Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson has blamed Sunak’s D-Day debacle for the party losing in some marginals. Robert Buckland — who lost his seat to Labour — laid the blame at the feet of colleagues such as Suella Braverman and “performance art politics”: “I’ve watched colleagues in the Conservative Party strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds and say stupid things they know have no evidence for instead of getting on with the job.”
Expect more of this as the day goes on. Sunak has said he will take the blame — but at this rate there is plenty of vitriol to go around.
This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.
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