Rishi Sunak is fighting a defensive war – and is desperately short of troops

It must be doubly galling for David Frost and David Campbell Bannerman – two of the most indefatigable of the Brexit ultras – to have been placed in some doubt that they will be able to stand as official Conservative Party candidates at the general election. That’s because the Tories are, as The Independent today reports, short of almost 200 parliamentary candidates, a total that will include some which, in any “normal” year, would be reasonably safe seats and excellent prospects for any extreme Eurosceptic looking for a base from which to pursue their obsessions.

Lord Frost in particular will be disappointed, because he is, after all, the co-architect, with Boris Johnson, of the Brexit deal – albeit these days he seems keen to denounce his own handiwork.

The fate of these two wannabe parliamentarians carries meaning and significance far beyond their own ambitions. It is surely a sign that some in the Tory leadership are quietly preparing for life in opposition and the long process of rebuilding to become a serious party of government once again – and to ensure that it is not taken over by the hard right and the Farageistes, either inside the present party or presently hanging around Reform UK.

No doubt, were it in his gift, Rishi Sunak and his closest colleagues would not object if, say, Suella Braverman and Liz Truss were surprisingly deselected at the last minute, but Mr Sunak’s luck ran out quite some time ago.

The encouraging sign, amid a sea of Tory troubles, is that at least some senior Conservatives are prepared to fight and manoeuvre again to save the party they love. Giving up on a general election when you are 20 points behind is one thing; abandoning what has been the most successful party in world democratic politics is quite another.

In short, if they let Nigel Farage and his cranky allies acquire the Conservative and Unionist Party through entryism, and convert it into a hard-right, populist, authoritarian Islamophobic movement, then the party will indeed be irrecoverable for a very long time indeed.

More broadly, the fact that so many seats remain vacant is merely another indicator of the jeopardy the party finds itself in. That they should suddenly call an election with candidate selection so far behind where it ought to be doesn’t suggest great organisational talent – or confidence in the outcome.

In the run-up to the election announcement, for example, it was reported, only half-jokingly, that Mr Sunak was confident of achieving the biggest political comeback ever. But even this prime ministerial Lazarus virtually admits that he’s only aiming for a hung parliament. It is telling, though not surprising, that Mr Sunak’s first campaign visit was to the Erewash constituency in Derbyshire, currently held by the Conservatives with a majority of 10,606 – in other words, what should be a reasonable buffer, but is far from adequate now for the incumbent, Maggie Throup.

Mr Sunak did not waste his own time or anyone else’s by flying into any seats held by Labour or the Liberal Democrats on the pretence that he was looking to increase his majority. The record number of Conservatives who are stepping down now rather than facing the voters, surpassing the 1997 tally, also indicates a certain lack of faith in the future. To be fair, Labour is currently short of around 90 candidates – but, then again, the timing of the election wasn’t in their hands.

Unless some young candidate is looking for campaigning experience in the hope of moving on to more winnable territory next time, it is difficult to see what anyone gets out of being a Tory candidate in anything but the most impregnable stronghold this time round. In fact, even those lucky enough to be part of the next, much-denuded parliamentary Conservative Party won’t have much to look forward to in opposition against a Labour landslide majority lasting the course of the next parliament – nor, possibly the one after as Sir Keir Starmer’s “decade of renewal” drags inexorably on for them. Ministerial office most seem distant, even for the brighter new recruits.

Mr Sunak, therefore, is fighting a defensive war, and is short of troops. According to Professor Sir John Curtice, any current Tory candidate defending a majority of less than 30 per cent of the electorate over Labour is vulnerable to defeat, while those facing a Liberal Democrat challenge are in trouble unless they have a buffer of 20 per cent or so. Recent by-elections, council elections and the result of the York and North Yorkshire mayoralty suggest that even the prime minister himself cannot be entirely confident of surviving the carnage – something does seem to have shifted in the mood of North Riding folk in recent times.

Even if Mr Sunak is available to become leader of the opposition, many of his most senior colleagues look almost certainly doomed. The Liberal Democrats’ “hit-list” is usually a bit of an exercise in wishful thinking, but Lucy Frazer, Alex Chalk, Gillian Keegan and Jeremy Hunt are certainly at risk from Sir Ed Davey’s guerilla tactics – and Michael Gove would have been had he not jumped first. Election night 2024 will have many such “Portillo moments” – unless the big beasts bottle it beforehand.

Still, campaigns do sometimes matter, as Theresa May might readily acknowledge after she squandered a 20-point lead in a matter of weeks and almost let Jeremy Corbyn into No 10 during the 2017 general election. There is nothing necessarily preventing Mr Sunak from recovering from his poor start, winning the arguments and allowing the long campaign to pressurise Labour. After all, steady attrition did succeed in forcing a U-turn on the £28bn Green Prosperity Plan.

Labour is not surrounded by some sort of mystical force field that protects what are sometimes highly sketchy policies from scrutiny. They have their weak points, too. It may not quite be “all to play for” after 14 years, and an electorate that has mostly made its mind up, but there’s still enough at stake to keep Mr Sunak going. It’s a pity, for him, that so few want to join him on the front line.