Another political headache for Rishi Sunak – as things start to look like John Major years of scandal
This is a tale that’s more than just a marmalade dropper. It’s a story so astounding you have to pick yourself up off the floor.
Mark Menzies MP last December allegedly made a 3.15am phone call to an elderly party volunteer asking for £5,000 as a matter of “life or death” because he had been locked up by “bad people”.
To secure his release, the money was paid by his office manager from her personal account and reimbursed from funds raised from donors, according to The Times. The newspaper also alleges Mr Menzies received thousands of pounds from campaign funds into his personal bank account which were used for personal medical expenses.
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I will say from the outset that these are claims Mr Menzies, the MP for the Lancashire seat of Fylde, “strongly disputes”.
In a statement to The Times, he said: “I strongly dispute the allegations put to me. I have fully complied with all the rules for declarations. As there is an investigation ongoing I will not be commenting further.”
But when the story broke, Conservative chief whip Simon Hart suspended Mr Menzies from the parliamentary party pending the outcome of an investigation.
It is a mega story. Not just because of the staggering, astounding, eye-popping – take your pick – nature of the allegations, but the questions it throws up: If this had happened over three months ago, why is it only now that the Conservative Party are suspending the whip? Was there misuse of money and what are the implications of that? Can Mr Menzies really continue as an MP?
And how much will this hurt the Conservatives, who have for weeks been chasing Angela Rayner over allegations – which she denies – she avoided paying capital gains tax on the sale of her council house a decade ago, when these allegations around their own MP were swirling in the background?
‘Surprised if he lasts the week’
First off, Conservative peer Ruth Davidson thinks Mr Menzies will have no option but to resign and trigger a by-election in another danger zone seat given the Conservatives have a 16,000 majority – the sort of lead that Labour and Lib Dems have been repeatedly overturning in by-elections of late.
Ruth Davidson describes the story as “jaw-dropping” on Electoral Dysfunction this week, and reckons that Mr Menzies is going to have to resign, saying she’d be “surprised” if he lasts the week.
She adds: “The Tories were supposedly told about this three months ago, and this is the first we’re hearing about it.
“And by reading the story, it looks very much like this lady told her local association, raised the red flag, then told the parliamentary authorities.
“The chief whip then told CCHQ, which is Tory HQ. Nothing’s happened and now she’s quoted in the newspapers.
“So, I mean, it does appear that there’s local association wrath about the way they’ve been treated by this MP. So, you know, I think this is a very difficult one, and I would find it difficult to believe that an investigation can be held and he can be cleared in time to stand a general election.
“In fact, I would be surprised if he survives the week here and doesn’t just resign.”
Jess Philips agrees and tells us that he will “have no choice but to resign and force a by-election”.
Ruth thinks there’s another by-election headache on the horizon for Rishi Sunak. Pic: PA
For obvious reasons, that will be something the party and Rishi Sunak will want to avoid, with the Conservatives already being hammered in the three by-elections held this year and expecting to lose Blackpool South next month.
Half of Labour’s top ten by-election swings in history have come in the last 18 months.
Mr Sunak will not want any more record breakers if he can help it in this election year.
“I don’t think Mark Menzies wants to walk away right now. But I also don’t think that the Conservatives want to have a by-election this close to a general election,” explains Ruth.
“Yes, they have a 16,000 majority, but then if they lose it, that makes it worse.
“However, it’s the sort of seat where if it’s just in the mix as part of a general election, it’s probably not right at the top of the kind of target seats for the Labour Party.
“So they probably get to hold the seat if he stays there. Even as independent, the Tories more than likely hold the seat at a general. If it goes to a by-election, all bets are off.”
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Ruth Davidson on Mark Menzies allegations
‘It feels end of days’
Whatever happens next, I have little doubt that his story will stay in the headlines, giving the prime minister yet another headache ahead of the local elections on 2 May that he just doesn’t need as he makes some progress on his proposed smoking ban and flagship Rwanda bill.
Ruth likens the string of scandals to the John Major years, when his government was rocked by a series of unflattering revelations, from the Neil Hamilton “cash-for-questions” scandal to stories of extra-marital affairs.
She says: “I think in terms of the mood in the Tory party, there is that sense that every time we start to get on the front foot about something, something comes and knocks us off.
“And also just the number now of scandals that are coming along.
“It feels sort of end of days. It feels like the 1992 to 1997 sort of parliament.
“And you can kind of see the party sort of splintering in front of your eyes and, and yeah, I mean, you will probably get on to it, but in the week that you also have Liz Truss reminding everybody that she exists, you know, it’s not a good week for the Conservative Party.”
Listen to Beth Rigby, Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson as they unravel the spin in a new weekly podcast from Sky News
Jess also thinks there’s a bit of schadenfreude about all of this, given the vigour with which the Conservatives have leapt on matters relating to Angela Rayner’s council house before she was an MP.
She said: “The Tories have been literally salivating over Angela Rayner’s nine-year-ago sale of a council house in her blended family… and there’s no reason why she shouldn’t have to answer those questions.
“But when you put this into this context… it’s a bit like, in a sort of old-school way, a Looney Tunes cartoon where somebody sets a really, really, really elaborate trap and then the anvil falls on their head.
“It does feel a little bit like the Tories have misstepped on this. And it was always so obvious that going after Angela Rayner in this way was always going to come and bite them in the arse.”
From the developing story around Mr Menzies, to the publicity blitz from Liz Truss over her new book Ten Tears To Save The West, there is plenty of dysfunction for us to chew over this week.
And spare a thought for Mr Sunak – having made progress on his smoking ban, and working hard to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East, he’s been laid low again by political storms.
Ramesh lives in fear every day. A police siren is enough to alarm him.
He’s one of up to 400,000 visa overstayers in the UK, one lawyer we spoke to believes.
It’s only an estimate because the Home Office has stopped collecting figures – which were unreliable in the first place.
Britain is being laughed at, one man told us, “because they know it’s a soft country”.
‘Ramesh’ came to the UK from India
We meet Ramesh (not his real name) at a Gurdwara, a Sikh place of worship, where he goes for food and support.
He insists he can’t return to India where he claims he was involved in political activism.
Ramesh says he came to the UK on a student visa in 2023, but it was cancelled when he failed to continue his studies after being involved in a serious accident.
He tells us he is doing cash-in-hand work for people who he knows through the community where he is living and is currently working on a house extension where he gets paid as little as £50 for nine hours labouring.
“It’s very difficult for me to live in the UK without my Indian or Pakistani community – also because there are a lot of Pakistani people who give me work in their houses for cleaning and for household things,” he adds.
‘What will become of people like us?’
Anike has lived in limbo for 12 years.
Now living in Greater Manchester, she came to the UK from Nigeria when her sister Esther was diagnosed with a brain tumour – she had a multi-entry visa but was supposed to leave after three months.
Esther had serious complications from brain surgery and says she is reliant on her sister for care.
Immigration officials are in touch with her because she has to digitally sign in every month.
Anike has had seven failed applications for leave to remain on compassionate grounds refused but is now desperate to have her status settled – afraid of the shifting public mood over migration.
“Everybody is thinking ‘what will become of people like us?'” she adds.
‘It’s a shambles’
The government can’t say with any degree of accuracy how many visa overstayers there are in Britain – no data has been collated for five-and-a-half years.
But piecing together multiple accounts from community leaders and lawyers the picture we’ve built is stark.
Immigration lawyer Harjap Singh Bhangal told us he believed there could be several hundred thousand visa overstayers currently in Britain.
He says: “At this time, there’s definitely in excess of about 200,000 people overstaying in the UK. It might even be closer to 300,000, it could even be 400,000.”
Asked what evidence he has for this he replies: “Every day I see at least one overstayer, any immigration lawyers like me see overstayers and that is the bulk of the work for immigration lawyers.
“The Home Office doesn’t have any accurate data because we don’t have exit controls. It’s a shambles. It’s an institution where every wall in the building is cracked.”
The number of those who are overstaying visas and working cash in hand is also virtually impossible to measure.
‘They know Britain is a soft country’
“They’re laughing at us because they know Britain is a soft country, where you won’t be picked up easily,” says the local man we’ve arranged to meet as part of our investigation.
We’re in Kingsbury in northwest London – an area which people say has been transformed over the past five years as post-Brexit visa opportunities opened up for people coming from South Asia.
‘Mini-Mumbai’
The man we’re talking to lives in the community and helps with events here. He doesn’t want to be identified but raises serious questions about visa abuse.
“Since the last five years, a huge amount of people have come in this country on this visiting visa, and they come with one thing in mind – to overstay and work in cash,” he says.
“This area is easy to live in because they know they can survive. It looks like as if you are walking through mini-Mumbai.”
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‘The system is more than broken’
‘It’s taxpayers who are paying’
And he claims economic migrants are regularly arriving – who’ve paid strangers to pretend they’re a friend or relative in order to obtain a visitor visa to get to Britain.
He says: “I’ve come across so many people who have come this way into this country. It’s widespread. When I talk to these people, they literally tell me, ‘Oh, someone is coming tomorrow, day after tomorrow, someone is coming’.
“Because they’re hidden they may not be claiming benefits, but they can access emergency healthcare and their children can go to school.
“And who is paying for it? It’s the taxpayers who are paying for all this,” says the man we’ve met in north London.
Read more from Sky News:
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A Home Office spokesperson said: “We will not tolerate any abuse of our immigration system and anyone found to be breaking the rules will be liable to have enforcement action taken against them.
“In the first year of this government, we have returned 35,000 people with no right to be here – a 13% rise compared to the previous year.
“Arrests and raids for illegal working have soared to their highest levels since records began, up 63% and 51%.”
The government can’t say with accuracy how many visa overstayers there are in Britain – no data has been collated for five-and-a-half years.
Sky News has spoken to immigration lawyers about the numbers, and one believes there could be as many as 400,000 living across the country.
Harjap Singh Bhangal described the situation as a “shambles”.
“The Home Office doesn’t have any accurate data because we don’t have exit controls. It’s a shambles. It’s an institution where every wall in the building is cracked,” he told Sky’s Lisa Holland.
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The visa overstayers in ‘soft’ Britain
Why doesn’t the government know?
The Home Office used to gather data on visa overstayers by effectively checking a list of passport numbers associated with visas against a list of passport numbers of people leaving the UK, taken from airlines and other international travel providers.
If there was a passport number match in the arrivals and departures part of their database, that person was recorded to have left when they should have. If there wasn’t, they were a potential overstayer.
They stopped producing the figures because a combination of Brexit and COVID added complications that made the Home Office conclude they wouldn’t be able to get to a reliable number using the same method.
It’s now four and a half years since EU citizens had freedom of movement to the UK revoked, and more than three and a half years since pandemic-era travel restrictions ended.
And yet we are still waiting to see what a new method might look like.
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The old method wasn’t perfect. If someone changed their passport while in the UK, for example, or if the airline or individual entered the number wrong when they were leaving, there wouldn’t be a match.
The Home Office regarded the statistics as likely overestimating the true number of overstayers, and the Office for National Statistics designated the figures as “experimental” rather than “official” statistics, meaning the conclusions should be treated with caution. But they were a reasonable best guess.
With all that in mind, between April 2016 and March 2020 upwards of 250,000 people were flagged as potential overstayers, equivalent to 63,000 per year.
That’s more than the 190,000 people who are recorded to have arrived in the UK on small boats since 2018.
It represents 3.5% of the seven million visas that expired over that period, so at least 96.5% of people left when they should.
Other Home Office data reveals that more than 13 million visas were issued between 2020 and the end of June 2025, including a record 3.4 million in 2023.
But what we don’t know is how many have expired, which means it’s difficult for us to even guess how many people might have overstayed.
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