PM faces 'real danger', former Conservative chief warns - as lawmakers revolt over wind farms, house building and crackdown on foreign students
Rishi Sunak has been warned he has only six months to take control of the government and change the fortunes of the Conservative party, as a series of major mutinies by Tory lawmakers are starting to escalate.
Former party chairman Sir Jake Berry added his name Sunday to a list of Tory figures trying to force the prime minister to lift a de facto ban on new onshore wind farms.
Leveling-Up Secretary Michael Gove is also understood to want an end to the onshore wind moratorium, after Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Cop26 president Alok Sharma backed the rebel amendment.
Sir Jake said Gove's reported rejection of the in-cabinet ban "showed a real danger" to the government - suggesting it was the "first crack in the wall" for Sunak's government.
Suggesting discipline was starting to "break down", he told the BBC Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: "I was in the Liz Truss government, and you know it ended when we lost collective cabinet responsibility."
Mr Berry also said Sunak had a "narrow window" of six months until local elections in May to convince voters he could "tackle" big issues and prove his competence.
"There are only 18 months, until the next general election," he added. “In the last 12 months nobody really listened because it was all about the election campaign. So we have about six months to fix it.
Former chancellor George Osborne warned Mr Sunak on Sunday that there was a "general feeling that the government was not controlling events", telling The Andrew Neil Show that the public mood was "dangerous for the government".
Ms Truss and Mr Johnson are among dozens of Tory MPs believed to support the pro-land wind amendment to Mr Gove's Level Up Bill by former leveling-up minister Simon Clarke.
Mr Gove, who expressed a desire to see the development of a new onshore wind earlier this year, has told allies he is in favor of ending the de facto ban, according to the Sunday Telegraph. Tory MPs Elliot Colburn, Robert Courts and Kevin Foster will add their signatures to the amendment.
A rebel source said 30 Tories now support the bid – narrowly eroding Sunak's working majority of 69 votes if other opposition parties join Labor in supporting the amendment.
Mr. Sunak also faces big challenges in targeting house construction. The PM was forced to withdraw a vote on the law that would have set a target of 300,000 homes a year when more than 50 Tory lawmakers signed the rebel amendment.
The dispute escalated Sunday when the senior Tories insisted that the building target was important and must remain in law. Former ministers Sajid Javid and Brandon Lewis argue that the Tories could lose the next election if they fail to help more young people up the housing ladder.
Mr Javid said there was a risk of creating "a generation that turns its back on the politicians who let them down", arguing for the Sunday Times that home ownership must remain "deep at the heart of the Conservative philosophy".
In other uprisings, some Tories have spoken of the PM's "reckless" plans to crack down on foreign students in a bid to cut immigration numbers.
No 10 confirmed this week that the prime minister is considering whether to stop international students from carrying dependents and limit acceptance to top universities.
MP Chris Skidmore, Tory peer Jo Johnson and former education minister David Willetts said it would hurt Britain's reputation and economic growth.
"It's hard to imagine a policy more likely to undermine Britain's ambitions to become a science superpower and level up the whole country than a senseless crackdown on international students," Mr Johnson, the PM's former brother, told The Observer.
Meanwhile, Sunak faces growing frustration over the looming strike by NHS nurses, rail staff and postal workers. Transport secretary Mark Harper insisted that wage increases in line with inflation were "unaffordable" for the public sector. "No money," he told Sky News.
Mr Sunak - who will be setting out his economic vision to City magnates at the annual Mayor's Banquet on Monday - will also have to contend with an expected "mass exodus" of Conservative lawmakers.
Net-zero czar Chris Skidmore's government became the ninth person to say it will not contest the next election following a surprise announcement by 2019's "red wall" star, Dehenna Davison.
But cabinet minister Mark Harper insisted the exodus was "nothing to write home about", insisting it was normal to make as many announcements as the Tories had been given until December 5 to make a decision on whether they would run.
It comes as a joint Labor Party analysis shows that the Tories in the Tories in the "red wall" seats in the north of England have been left with declining numbers to take part in the next election, with more of the party's donations going to the "blue wall" seats in the south. .
Labor strategists – who examine donation patterns in Election Commission records and MPs' interest lists – dub it as Mr Sunak's “southern comfort” strategy. The Savanta ComRes poll for The Independent – one month after Mr Sunak took over from Ms Truss – shows Labor enjoying an 18-point lead, with experts saying Sunak's bounce has now "evened out".
Tory lawmakers on the far right of the party warned that if poll numbers don't improve with local elections in the spring, it could even see a push for the return of "election winner" Boris Johnson. This article was written by EDUKASI CAMPUS.