How much of a threat do renegade Tory conferences pose to Rishi Sunak?

On Monday evening, Rishi Sunak attempted to settle the nerves of restless Tory MPs following the party’s drubbing at the local elections.

A garden party – complete with pork pies from his Yorkshire constituency – might not cut the mustard, though.

The loss of more than 1,000 council seats would be enough cause for concern for any Conservative leader and prime minister.

But Mr Sunak has also had to contend with a number of Tory conferences that have been interpreted by some as an undermining of his leadership.

The first, the grassroots Conservative Democratic Organisation (CDO), took place in Bournemouth and can be described as a gathering of those loyal to Mr Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson.

Set up by backers of the former leader, the new group wants to give party members more power and has been critical of the way Mr Sunak was elected last autumn – describing it as “undemocratic” and a “coronation”.

The second, which began on Monday and is continuing into Wednesday, is the National Conservatism forum, which espouses right-wing, Christian family values and has been inspired by movements in the United States.

Both conferences have lamented the current direction of the Conservative party while emphasising their own remedy for its woes.

But what are these renegade splinter groups and how much of a threat do they pose to Mr Sunak’s leadership? Sky News explains.

Patel says Sunak risks ‘managed decline’

The CDO was set up last December – just months after Mr Sunak assumed the leadership – with a call for Tory members to “take back control” of the party after he was elected without a members’ vote following the chaos of Liz Truss’s resignation.

Key figures include billionaire Conservative donor Lord Cruddas, the party’s former treasurer, who is spearheading the campaign with key Johnson ally and former home secretary Priti Patel.

The group’s aim is to “empower party members and steer its political direction back to the centre-right” following the ousting of Mr Johnson – although even his most enthusiastic supporters have suggested a return for the former prime minister would be highly unlikely.

The group has also expressed anger at Mr Sunak’s “left of centre” position around taxes – who has refused their calls to cut them immediately.

At its meeting at the weekend, the conference heard from the likes of Ms Patel, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries and former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg.

In words that may unnerve Mr Sunak, Ms Patel blamed the “centre of the party” for the Conservatives’ heavy losses in the local elections and said the party “would not have seen over 1,000 of our friends and colleagues lose their seats” if centrists had “spent more time with us, listening, engaging”.

She also told CDO members on Saturday that Mr Sunak needed to offer more “hope and optimism” for Conservatism or he risked being responsible for the “managed decline” of the party and defeat at next year’s general election.

One Tory MP who spoke to Sky News said the CDO was created out of “frustration that members didn’t have a say” on the leadership of the Conservative party.

“Because the PM never won an election of the membership, a lot of the parliamentary party think we need to shape it and will form these groups,” they said.

But asked whether Mr Sunak’s position was under threat, they said: “I don’t think there is any chance of changing prime minister before the next election.”

Braverman emerges as main advocate for ‘traditional values’

Perhaps the more controversial of the conferences is the National Conservatism forum – a global, right-wing movement which claims that traditional values are being “undermined and overthrown”.

Its website says that national conservatism is the “best path forward for a democratic world confronted by a rising China abroad and a powerful new Marxism at home”.

US speakers who will feature at the London conference include JD Vance, a right-wing senator who was backed by Donald Trump, and Rod Dreher, an American writer who sympathises with Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orban.

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The conference has already attracted criticism for some of the values its supporters have promoted – including that family is defined as being between a man and a woman only – prompting Downing Street to distance itself from the gathering this morning.

Tory MP Miriam Cates opened the three-day conference in London on Monday with a speech in which she claimed that falling birth rates are “the one overarching threat to British conservatism and indeed the whole of Western society” and that “cultural Marxism” was “destroying our children’s souls”.

If Mr Johnson was centre stage at the CDO conference in Bournemouth, then the star of the show at the National Conservatism forum was Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Ms Braverman made immigration the central plank of her speech, arguing “it’s not racist” to want control of the UK’s borders.

Her speech has been interpreted as jockeying for the Tory leadership in the event the Conservatives lose the next election, with former cabinet minister Robert Buckland suggesting to Sky News that Ms Braverman should “concentrate on the job” of being the home secretary.

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One Tory watcher told Sky News that the two conferences were not a “serious threat” to Mr Sunak, describing the CDO gathering as a “confused rabble” and the National Conservatism forum as a “flat-pack US conference where Braverman is auditioning for a 2024 bid”.

This in itself is unlikely to trouble Mr Sunak given Ms Braverman’s reputation for openly expressing her views and the fact that, having run for the leadership herself, her ambitions are not a secret.

“The battle is about managed succession not regicide,” they explained.

Until the local elections, Mr Sunak had been praised for steadying the Tory ship – a ship that has now witnessed its first signs of mutiny.

For Mr Sunak, these conferences might serve as a reminder that should he fail to set out an attractive course for the Conservative party, there are plenty of people waiting in the wings who are willing to do it for him.

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