Does the anti-Sunak campaign have legs?

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Good morning. Will Dry, a Downing Street special adviser, has quit Rishi Sunak’s team to join the Conservative Britain Alliance. This group has commissioned polls that are being used as a pretext to get rid of the prime minister.

As a rule of thumb, it’s always a good sign for a party leader if the resignations decline in public prominence. Very few people had heard of Simon Clarke, the Trussite former cabinet minister who called for Sunak to go on Tuesday. Even fewer have heard of Dry.

Nonetheless, the anti-Sunak campaign does have a half-decent theory of change. Some thoughts on its meaning and the big flaw at its heart below.

The plot thickens

Rishi Sunak is leader of the Conservative party because he enjoys the support of about 80 per cent of the parliamentary party. Although it’s not quite as simple as saying the 63 who rebelled against the government on the amendments to the Rwanda bill last week are all Sunak opponents and the remainder his supporters, it’s a pretty good indicator of the prime minister’s standing among his MPs.

As long as that remains the case, no number of silly polls in the Telegraph nor resignation statements by Downing Street aides in the Sun are going to remove Sunak as Tory leader.

Of course, part of the point of the silly polls is to sell Conservative MPs a narrative that their problems can be solved if only they get rid of Sunak and replace him with an “authentically conservative prime minister”. As one minister tells our team:

You can’t overestimate the psychological impact that poll has had…