Rishi Sunak shouldn’t fool himself that sanity has broken out in the Conservative Party - Andrew Vine

Our next Prime Minister shouldn’t fool himself that sanity has broken out in the Conservative Party.

Psychodramas, infighting and the malign spectre of Boris Johnson hovering in the background are going to make Mr Sunak’s job a nightmare, even before he tackles the economic crisis, the challenges posed by a resurgent Labour Party and a collapse of public confidence in the Conservatives’ ability to run the country.

There will be MPs waiting to stab him in the back, fixated with the notion that it is only a matter of time before they can restore Mr Johnson to what they believe is his rightful place running the country.

And the former Prime Minister will do all he can to encourage them. His typically graceless, self-regarding statement on Sunday night withdrawing from the contest for the Conservative leadership was proof of that.

His key phrase was that it is “simply not the right time” to challenge for the leadership. They were not the words of a man who acknowledges he had his chance and blew it.

They amounted to a veiled threat to Mr Sunak from a politician who wants revenge and will bide his time until he sees the opportunity to exact it, knowing that a rump of the Parliamentary party – and grassroots membership – will back him.

A collective madness appears to grip sections of the Conservative Party, as well as a curious short-term amnesia.

The madness is there in the fervour of some to see Boris Johnson back in Downing Street, and the amnesia to be seen in them forgetting he was forced from office by his own MPs only months ago because he was a disgrace who had debased the office of Prime Minister.

The country knows him to be dishonest and a charlatan. The opinion polls foretold that he had become electoral poison. The economy was already going haywire on his watch, and he faces the possibility of losing his seat as a result of allegedly lying to Parliament.

He long ago trashed the Tories’ reputation for integrity and competent government.

Yet somehow, he retains a Svengali-like hold on otherwise sensible party members, who remain convinced that he is the best person to lead the country, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence to the contrary.

This is going to be a nagging headache for Mr Sunak, who will be under no illusions about what an uphill struggle he faces in trying to unite his party and convince a sceptical electorate that it is fit to govern after the chaos inflicted on the country.

The debacle of Liz Truss’s fleeting and disastrous tenure has made the Richmond MP’s task all the harder by aggravating economic problems that were already grave.

Yet the public should give Mr Sunak the benefit of the doubt, and the chance to repair the damage wrought not just by his immediate predecessor, but by Mr Johnson’s reckless attitude towards the public finances.

Here in the north, we have seen that his levelling up agenda amounted to empty boastfulness. The red wall seats that put their trust in him are no better off than they were.

It is doubtful Mr Sunak can do much about that in the little more than two years before he must go to the country in a general election, especially against the backdrop of looming cuts in public spending.

Yet we should hope that he can mitigate the worst effects of what lies ahead.

His track record as Chancellor, especially in saving businesses and livelihoods during the pandemic, is that of a man who has a genuine concern for those facing hardship and takes action to help.

His intellect, economic literacy and obvious decency make him the best leader to be found in the Conservative ranks and should steady the jittery financial markets that exert such an influence on all of our everyday lives.

Whether he can steady his party sufficiently to give it even an outside chance of avoiding electoral wipeout is another matter altogether.

Yesterday, even one of its long-term backers, financier Guy Hands, condemned it as unfit to govern.

With friends like that, Mr Sunak need hardly go looking for enemies, which are plentiful within Conservative ranks.