Rishi Sunak is facing three challenging by-elections in the coming weeks after former UK cabinet minister Nigel Adams announced he was quitting the House of Commons immediately.
The decision by Adams — an ally of former premier Boris Johnson — raised immediate speculation about a co-ordinated attempt to undermine the Downing Street incumbent.
Sunak’s Conservative party will also have to defend the seats previously held by Johnson and another of his supporters, Nadine Dorries, who both resigned as MPs on Friday.
One Tory insider said on Saturday that “problems will come if we don’t do well” in the by-elections, describing them as the first big test of Sunak’s leadership.
The mood in the party was “already not great and this will unsettle people”, the person added.
Another Tory figure said: “It’s a headache — I think long-term it might be slightly better for them (Sunak’s team) to not have Boris, but it’s marginal as he’ll snipe from the sidelines.”
Adams enjoyed a huge majority of 20,137 votes in his seat of Selby and Ainsty, which he has held since its creation in 2010.
But British by-elections can throw up surprise results. The Tory party has lost several seats with huge majorities in the past two years in Tiverton and Honiton, North Shropshire and Chesham and Amersham.
Many of Johnson’s supporters have never forgiven Sunak for resigning as chancellor nearly a year ago, in a move that precipitated a wider coup by ministers that forced the then prime minister out of office.
“The counter-coup is now well under way,” said David Bannerman, a former Tory MEP. “Sunak is on borrowed time. Expect other by-elections.”
Sir Simon Clarke, a former cabinet minister who was given a knighthood by Johnson on Friday, pointedly described Adams as “loyal to the last”.
But one Tory MP said: “Boris and Nadine are selfish and they have lost. This is all out of spite.”
A second Conservative MP said it “feels like the death throes of Boris’s support in parliament”.
Adams’s resignation came just hours after Johnson announced his own departure in protest at what he called the “kangaroo court” privileges committee, which is poised to cast judgment on whether he lied to MPs about lockdown parties in Downing Street.
Johnson said on Friday night that he was leaving parliament “for now” because he believed the committee, which has a Conservative majority, was mounting a “political hit job” against him after he was passed its initial findings this week.
Earlier on Friday Downing Street published Johnson’s resignation honours, which he used to reward allies with peerages, knighthoods and other awards.
A group of four Johnson-supporting Tory MPs — including Adams and Dorries — had been expected to receive peerages but some colleagues believe they were blocked by Number 10 to avoid a rash of by-elections. Downing Street has denied any direct involvement from Sunak.
Former culture secretary Dorries quit on Friday, prompting an imminent by-election in her constituency of Mid Bedfordshire, where she had a majority of 24,664.
The Conservatives will be defending a more narrow majority of 7,210 in Johnson’s former seat of Uxbridge in west London, raising expectations that Labour will seize that constituency.
The other two Tory MPs who were expected to be granted peerages — but have not — were Scottish secretary Alister Jack and Alok Sharma, the former COP26 president.
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