Rishi Sunak looks to have seen off his backbenchers – at least for now.
The nascent rebellions have gone quiet in the past few weeks and the Commons is currently in its Easter recess, with MPs returning to Westminster on 15 April.
Time away from parliament normally strengthens – or at least prevents the further collapse – of a prime minister, as MPs disperse back to their constituencies and away from the plot-heavy fug of Westminster.
But a potential flashpoint is looming – May’s local elections.
A particularly bad performance by the Tories could lead to fresh pressure on the PM’s leadership and prove to be the catalyst for a concrete move to oust Mr Sunak.
Sky News explains how Tory MPs could get rid of the PM and – if they are successful – who would likely be in the running to replace him.
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How to depose a prime minister
The process of removing a Tory leader is governed by the 1922 Committee – also known as the ’22 – a group of backbench Tory MPs.
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If a Conservative MP wants a new leader, they write to the head of the ’22 saying they have no confidence in the incumbent.
The chair of the committee is Sir Graham Brady.
Under party rules, 15% of Tory MPs need to write to Sir Graham in order to trigger a vote. Currently, there are 348 MPs, meaning the 15% threshold sits at 53.
There is often lots of speculation about how many letters have been submitted, but the only person who truly knows is Sir Graham himself.
Image: Sir Graham Brady has overseen numerous Tory leadership contests since becoming chair of the 1922 committee in 2010. Pic: PA
When the threshold is met, Sir Graham will make an announcement to the media.
There would then be a vote of all Tory MPs on whether to unseat Mr Sunak. If a majority say they have no confidence in him (50% +1) a leadership contest is triggered.
Mr Sunak would be barred from standing in the subsequent contest.
However, if the leader wins a vote of no confidence, they are then immune from a further such challenge for a year.
This happened with Theresa May in 2018, although she opted to resign a few months later amid continuing struggles to get a Brexit deal passed by MPs.
Image: Theresa May survived a vote of no confidence, but it proved to be a brief respite. Pic: PA
Her successor Boris Johnson also survived a confidence vote of Tory MPs in June 2022, but emerged from the ordeal weakened as a significant number of Conservatives (148, 41%) voted against him.
He announced his resignation a little more than a month later.
Are there any other circumstances in which the PM could go?
Another way Mr Sunak could be ousted is if the so-called “men in grey suits” tell him to step aside and he heeds their advice.
This is when senior Conservative MPs – like Sir Graham – tell the party leader they do not have the support of the party, and should step aside to save the ignominy of the above votes.
Of course, Mr Sunak could decide himself that the game is up and opt to jump before he is potentially pushed, but this is unlikely.
How would the contest pan out?
The exact rules for the contest would be set out by the ’22 after it is triggered.
Nominations for candidates would likely open quickly, with prospective leaders needing the support of a certain number of colleagues to stand.
Once nominations have closed, there would then be rounds of voting among Tory MPs for their preferred new leader. The worst-performing candidate in each ballot would be eliminated, until just two remain.
This pair would then compete for the votes of Conservative Party members, slugging it out to become party leader and prime minister.
This is what happened in the summer of 2022, when Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss were left as the last two candidates in the race to succeed Mr Johnson.
They then spent the summer campaigning for votes, with Ms Truss emerging victorious.
However, there have been examples in recent years of truncated contests.
The most recent of which was the second leadership contest of 2022, which Mr Sunak won unopposed after Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt pulled out.
In 2016, Tory members also didn’t get a chance to have their say.
Theresa May won both ballots of MPs, but she then became party leader unopposed after rival Andrea Leadsom pulled out in the wake of a controversial newspaper interview she later apologised for.
Will there be an election if there’s a new leader and PM?
In short, no.
Under our parliamentary system, the prime minister is leader of the largest party in the Commons.
If the Tories decide to get rid of Sunak and replace him, there is no legal obligation upon the party or the new leader to seek a fresh mandate from the electorate straight away.
The new PM could decide to call an election soon after taking office anyway, or they could wait it out until January 2025.
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Labour’s Gordon Brown didn’t call an election when he succeeded Sir Tony Blair as PM in 2007, although he did flirt with the idea of a snap poll.
The aforementioned Theresa May did go to the country early, but this was almost a year after she took office. Boris Johnson did call an election within a few months of entering Number 10, winning a big Tory majority in December 2019.
Neither Ms Truss or Mr Sunak opted to call an election on becoming PM, although it should be noted the former didn’t get much of a chance as she was in office for less than six weeks.
Who is likely to be in the running to succeed Sunak if he goes?
Given there is not long before there absolutely has to be an election – January 2025 at the very latest – and the polls suggest the Tories are on course for defeat, you might expect the field of likely contenders to succeed Mr Sunak to be quite narrow.
But a number of names have been suggested as potential replacements if he goes.
The defence secretary has emerged as someone who could look to run for the top job, having called for defence spending to rise to 3% of GDP – something that could win the support of Tory backbenchers.
Grant Shapps, who has also served as transport secretary, previously ran to be Tory leader in 2022.
The home secretary, who has also served as foreign secretary, is being talked about in moderate Tory circles as someone who could unify the party.
A key part of James Cleverly’s brief as home secretary is the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda – something he is said to have reservations about in private, despite his denials.
He caused controversy last year – and was forced to apologise – after making a joke about date rape which he admitted may have undermined the government’s work to tackle drink spiking.
Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, is seen as the darling of the right and has impressed some in the party with her no-nonsense approach.
One of her strongest advocates is Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary who has also run for leader in the past.
Ms Badenoch ran in the last Tory leadership of 2022 following Mr Johnson’s resignation, in which she was eliminated in the fourth ballot.
Penny Mordaunt has been at the heart of the rumours of a plot to replace Mr Sunak, although the Commons leader has insisted she is “getting on” with her job.
She has been mooted as a “compromise” candidate for those on the rightF because of her Brexit credentials and her performances in the Commons.
She is viewed as one of the more centrist figures in the party, but current polling suggests she could lose her seat at the next election.
Former home secretary Priti Patel, who now sits on the backbenches, was a key torchbearer for the right before she was eclipsed by Suella Braverman following the demise of Mr Johnson.
Ms Patel is seen as one the more traditional right-wing MPs in the party, compared with her successor Ms Braverman, who holds appeal with some of the Tory MPs elected in 2019. Her seat of Witham in Essex is also one of the safest in the country.
Robert Jenrick has held a number of ministerial roles, including as communities secretary, a position he lost in one of Boris Johnson’s reshuffles.
He was originally seen as a Sunak loyalist and was appointed immigration minister, partly to keep Ms Braverman in check.
However, he later hit the headlines when he resigned over Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda bill, saying he could not continue in government when he had such“strong disagreements with the direction of the government’s policy on immigration”.
Suella Braverman has cultivated a reputation on the right as someone who is not afraid to voice controversial opinions on immigration and law and order.
She was brought in by Mr Sunak to cater to the right of the party, where she commanded support.
However, her sacking as home secretary–over comments that homelessness was a “lifestyle choice” – may have affected her standing among Tory MPs.
Tom Tugendhat is regarded highly in the One Nation group of moderate Tory MPs.
He has previously run for Tory leader, but was knocked out of the race early and later threw his support behind Liz Truss.
Sir Keir Starmer needs to choose between parents who want stronger action to tackle harmful content on children’s phones, or the “tech bros” who are resisting changes to their platforms, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Speaking to Beth Rigby on Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast, the Labour peer noted that the prime minister met with the creators of hit Netflix drama Adolescence to discuss safety on social media, but she questioned if he is going to take action to “stop the tech companies allowing this sort of stuff” on their platforms where children can access it.
Sir Keir hosted a roundtable on Monday with Adolescence co-writer Jack Thorne and producer Jo Johnson to discuss issues raised in the series, which centres on a 13-year-old boy arrested for the murder of a young girl, and the rise of incel culture.
The aim was to discuss how to prevent young boys being dragged into a “whirlpool of hatred and misogyny”, and the prime minister said the four-part series raises questions about how to keep young people safe from technology.
Sir Keir has backed calls for the four-part drama to be shown in all schools across the country, but Baroness Harman questioned what is going to be achieved by having young people simply watch the show.
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Sir Keir Starmer held a roundtable with the creators of the Adolescence TV drama.
“Two questions were raised [for me],” she said. ” Firstly – after they’ve watched it, what is going to be the discussion afterwards?
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“And secondly, is he going to act to stop the tech companies allowing this sort of stuff to go online into smartphones without protection of children?
“Because if the tech companies wanted to do this, they could actually protect children. They can do everything they want with their tech.”
She acknowledged there are “very big public policy challenges” in this area, but added of the prime minister: “Is he going to side with parents who are terrified and want this content off their children’s phones, or is he going to accept the tech bros’ resistance to having to make changes?”
The Labour peer backed the Conservative Party’s call for a ban on smartphones in schools to be mandated from Westminster, saying it would “enable all schools not to have a discussion with their parents or to battle it out, but just to say, this is the ruling” from central government, which Ofsted would then enforce.
“I’m sensitive to the idea that we shouldn’t constantly be telling schools what to do,” she continued. “And they’ve got a lot of common sense and a lot of professional experience, and they should have as much autonomy as possible.
“But perhaps it’s easier for them if it’s done top down.”
Baroness Harman also questioned the speed with which parliament is actually able to legislate to deal with the very rapid development of new technologies, and posits that it could “change its processes to be able to legislate in real time”.
She suggested that a “powerful select committee” of MPs could be established to do that, because “otherwise we talk about it, and then we’re not able to legislate for 10 years – by which time that problem has really set in, and we’ve got a whole load more problems”.
On the podcast, the trio also discussed the 10% tariffs imposed on the UK by Donald Trump and the government’s efforts to strike a trade deal with the US to mitigate the impact of the levy.
The government has refused to rule out scrapping the Digital Services Tax, a 2% levy on tech giants’ revenues in the UK, as part of the negotiations with the Trump administration – a move Baroness Harman said would be “very heartbreaking”.
A group of investors with cryptocurrency custody and trading firm Bakkt Holdings filed a class-action lawsuit alleging false or misleading statements and a failure to disclose certain information.
Lead plaintiff Guy Serge A. Franklin called for a jury trial as part of a complaint against Bakkt, senior adviser and former CEO Gavin Michael, CEO and president Andrew Main, and interim chief financial officer Karen Alexander, according to an April 2 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The group of investors allege damages as the result of violations of US securites laws and a lack of transparency surrounding its agreement with clients: Webull and Bank of America (BoA).
April 2 complaint against Bakkt and its executives. Source: PACER
The loss of Bank of America and Webull will result “in a 73% loss in top line revenue” due to the two firms making up a significant percentage of its services revenue, the investor group alleges in the lawsuit. The filing stated Webull made up 74% of Bakkt’s crypto services revenue through most of 2023 and 2024, and Bank of America made up 17% of its loyalty services revenue from January to September 2024.
Bakkt disclosed on March 17 that Bank of America and Webull did not intend to renew their agreements with the firm ending in 2025. The announcement likely contributed to the company’s share price falling more than 27% in the following 24 hours. The investors allege Bakkt “misrepresented the stability and/or diversity of its crypto services revenue” and failed to disclose that this revenue was “substantially dependent” on Webull’s contract.
“As a result of Defendants’ wrongful acts and omissions, and the precipitous decline in the market value of the Company’s securities, Plaintiff and other Class members have suffered significant losses and damages,” said the suit.
Other law offices said they were investigating Bakkt for securities law violations, suggesting additional class-action lawsuits may be in the works. Cointelegraph contacted Bakkt for a comment on the lawsuit but did not receive a response at the time of publication.
The new trade tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump may place added pressure on the Bitcoin mining ecosystem both domestically and globally, according to one industry executive.
While the US is home to Bitcoin (BTC) mining manufacturing firms such as Auradine, it’s still “not possible to make the whole supply chain, including materials, US-based,” Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at BTC mining tech provider Braiins, told Cointelegraph.
On April 2, Trump announced sweeping tariffs, imposing a 10% tariff on all countries that export to the US and introducing “reciprocal” levies targeting America’s key trading partners.
Community members have debated the potential effects of the tariffs on Bitcoin, with some saying their impact has been overstated, while others see them as a significant threat.
Tariffs compound existing mining challenges
Csepcsar said the mining industry is already experiencing tough times, pointing to key indicators like the BTC hashprice.
Hashprice — a measure of a miner’s daily revenue per unit of hash power spent to mine BTC blocks — has been on the decline since 2022 and dropped to all-time lows of $50 for the first time in 2024.
According to data from Bitbo, the BTC hashprice was still hovering around all-time low levels of $53 on March 30.
Bitcoin hashprice since late 2013. Source: Bitbo
“Hashprice is the key metric miners follow to understand their bottom line. It is how many dollars one terahash makes a day. A key profitability metric, and it is at all-time lows, ever,” Csepcsar said.
He added that mining equipment tariffs were already increasing under the Biden administration in 2024, and cited comments from Summer Meng, general manager at Chinese crypto mining supplier Bitmars.
“But they keep getting stricter under Trump,” Csepcsar added, referring to companies such as the China-based Bitmain — the world’s largest ASIC manufacturer — which is subject to the new tariffs.
Trump’s latest measures include a 34% additional tariff on top of an existing 20% levy for Chinese mining imports. In response, China reportedly imposed its own retaliatory tariffs on April 4.
BTC mining firms to “lose in the short term”
Csepcsar also noted that cutting-edge chips for crypto mining are currently massively produced in countries like Taiwan and South Korea, which were hit by new 32% and 25% tariffs, respectively.
“It will take a decade for the US to catch up with cutting-edge chip manufacturing. So again, companies, including American ones, lose in the short term,” he said.
Csepcsar also observed that some countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States region, including Russia and Kazakhstan, have been beefing up mining efforts and could potentially overtake the US in hashrate dominance.
“If we continue to see trade war, these regions with low tariffs and more favorable mining conditions can see a major boom,” Csepcsar warned.
As the newly announced tariffs potentially hurt Bitcoin mining both globally and in the US, it may become more difficult for Trump to keep his promise of making the US the global mining leader.
Trump’s stance on crypto has shifted multiple times over the years. As his administration embraces a more pro-crypto agenda, it remains to be seen how the latest economic policies will impact his long-term strategy for digital assets.