This market resolves YES if 15% of Conservative MPs submit letters of no confidence to the 1922 committee before polling day for the next UK General Election following 2019 and a Vote of No Confidence is triggered.
This market will not resolve YES if a parliamentary vote of no confidence is submitted by an opposition party.
Resolves NO on polling day of the next GE if not resolved before.
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I don’t really see why the odds of this have gone down so much.
The tories have had a minor poll uptick in the last few weeks and the rebellious tories have gone quiet but the biggest catalysts for further rebellion (Local Elections and a further Reform surge) remain on the table.
The fundamental weaknesses of Sunak have not changed.
@Jony I agree and hold a yes position but there's also a natural time decay on this market
They won't change leader post September given proximity to the election which means we really only have a window of a few months
@Kurgan lol this rumour of a June/ July election seems hilariously desperate - means they except a horrible set of local results. Will be voting to do my bit hahaha
@IsarBhattacharjee Simon Clarke is one of only two people who’ve publicly stated they’ve a letter in and so it’s not a surprise that he thinks it’s imminent. I suspect we’re not anywhere near as close, I’m not expecting any movement until the May by-elections come in. But the way things are going I’m not seeing Sunak making it all the way to October without some kind of challenge.
@Fion lol still nowhere near confirmed but yeah never bet against the tory's unsatiable appetite for regicide
New details of dysfunction and plotting in the Sun today + Sam Coates (sky) confirms its aligned with his conversations with Tory MPs.
With May election off the table, PM has lost a lot of leverage
From the Sky News liveblog:
Meanwhile, Sky's deputy political editor Sam Coates, who has been talking to Tory MPs about the mood within the party, has said the possibility has been discussed by ministers (see post at 9.10am).
He says the cabinet remains supportive of the PM and there's no great appetite to get rid of him at this stage.
But the fact that it's even being talked about as a possibility is indicative of the difficult position the PM currently finds himself in.
We’re not on any knife edges here.
@Noit can move quite quickly. Having ministers openly discuss his exit is a big early warning sign and may local elections will be a key catalyst
Latest from Alex Wickham: https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1768187391238406559?s=20
Strongly believe this market still underprices odds of removing him
@IsarBhattacharjee I’ll believe it’s more likely when names are publicly attached to letters. “Letters in” is not the most important metric, it’s “ministers publicly campaigning for the PM to go”. That number hasn’t changed in months.
@Noit totally agree but I guess the question is not is the probability 50%, the question is whether 25% is too low
@Fion @IsarBhattacharjee i opened a larger order after you ate my previous one so quickly. Any interest?
Curious to hear your thinking on this, @IsarBhattacharjee. I would put this at ~10%, I think that the Tories know that they are on thin ice with the public not just in terms of their governance, but in terms of their credibility as a party of government. If the Conservative party isn't even able to function on an on organisational basis then you might as well vote for Reform!
Maybe some Tory MPs are willing to just take the moonshot gamble that deposing Rishi and installing someone else (Mourdaunt? Badenoch?! Braverman?!?) would somehow save their seats, but surely most of them recognise that doing so would be far more likely to kill the party stone dead than result in electoral reprieve.
@Kurgan - 3 reasons
There's a movment to get rid of him (Simon Clarke + Will Dry)
The by elections are likely to be bad which could be a clear catalyst
Polling is really horrendous and most tory MPs were terrified by the MRP that came out last week
@IsarBhattacharjee I suspect a fair price is around 30%. They won't challenge him most of the time but they don't need that many letters (fewer than the number who rebelled vs the rwanda ammendments)
@IsarBhattacharjee I think the true percentage is 15-20% but is going to be very changeable based on the next few days. There is a movement against Sunak but it’s so far been no-names resulting in a damp squib. If this rumoured cabinet minister decides to join in then maybe it goes somewhere.
If not then it’s a lower chance, but entirely possible we hit the VoNC threshold just from ministers quietly venting their frustration and we get a kind of accidental VoNC. Especially if the election is towards year end.
@Noit I do not think it is likely that the threshold is hit 'by accident'. Recall that it took a pretty concerted and collected effort to get over the line for Johnson. People who matter (i.e. ministers, not literal nobodies like Sir Simon Clarke) will not submit letters unless they are part of a serious and popular movement within the party to depose Sunak, of which there is no indication.
@Kurgan I disagree. Johnson was popular with party and membership and was a force to be reckoned with. Sunak is polling at extinction levels and no branch of the party loves him. He’s unable to threaten anyone, see how nobody was punished for breaking a three line whip.
While we will never know how many letters are with Brady, I’d buy at 5-10% odds a scenario where there’s currently 15-20 in and a couple more go in the pile every week until we hit the threshold.
@Noit you make a good point w.r..t the difference between Johnson and Sunak.
Do you see a scenario in which actually holding a VoNC could possibly help the Tories, though? I feel like even if they could resurrect Disraeli it would still harm their electoral performance to install him so close to an election. So based on the premise that a VoNC (successful or otherwise) would be an unqualified disaster for the Tories, one should make the inference that MPs will be extremely careful about submitting letters.
@Kurgan The best case scenario is that a fresh leader gets a small polling boost for them. I think that is unlikely. It definitely does not stop them losing the election, but might stave off some losses for them.
You make a good point about taking care with their letters, but there are so many CON MPs resigning at the next election that I can equally imagine some putting in a letter because they’re annoyed and they do not care about what happens to the party post-election. That plus the individual tendency to think their vote won’t make a difference is why I don’t want to rule it out.
@Noit also Sunaks plan to increase the threshold of votes just got rejected by 1922 committee. Feb by elections will definitely be the next big catalyst
@IsarBhattacharjee Where are you seeing that it got rejected? I saw it was going to be requested but haven’t seen anything since.