New PM faces losing Commons confidence, Tory MPs warn

The next Conservative prime minister will face serious questions over whether they can command the confidence of the House of Commons, MPs have said after the party’s already vulnerable majority was put in further danger by the recall of a disgraced MP.

Several MPs told the Guardian they had “huge concerns” about whether Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt would be able to avoid an autumn election, given the Conservatives could lose another MP in an imminent byelection forced by the recall of Chris Davies.

The loss would give the Tories a working majority of three, and at least two MPs, Ken Clarke and Dominic Grieve, have said they would vote against their party if necessary in a confidence vote in order to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

The Guardian understands that Hunt raised concerns about the Tories’ shrinking majority in a private hustings with Conservative councillors on Friday, suggesting it would make it almost impossible for any prime minister to pursue no deal.

Davies was forced out on Friday by a recall petition following a conviction for expenses fraud, triggering a byelection in Brecon and Radnorshire, which he intends to fight as the Tory candidate.

The seat, which the Liberal Democrats have high hopes of winning, could be one of the most significant byelection fights in recent history. Nigel Farage’s Brexit party also intends to contest the seat.

A majority of three would put the Conservatives perilously close to losing any majority. One frontbencher said they were particularly concerned because two anonymous Conservative MPs had apparently been so angered by the state of the party that they spoilt their ballot papers in the fourth round of the leadership vote.

A new prime minister would also be expected to pass a Queen’s speech, an autumn budget and agree a new confidence-and-supply agreement with the Democratic Unionist party once a new parliament is called.

“Of course, there are huge concerns,” one former Tory minister said. “The DUP will probably want another £1bn and will probably insist on “no backstop” [in the Brexit deal] as a condition of any continuing relationship.” They added that if Johnson won on the back of support from the the European Research Group of hard-Brexit Tories, the party could lose the backing of pro-Europeans MPs, such as Dominic Grieve, Antoinette Sandbach and Philip Lee.

However, the former minister said they believed the situation would not apply uniquely to Johnson, and that either candidate would need to face the ballot box imminently. “Any way you look at it, you can’t avoid an election soon. And I fear Jeremy would lose one.”

Others in the party who are sceptical of a Johnson premiership believe it would be better for the frontrunner to have the constraints of a small majority. “In my view, the smaller the better,” one minister said. “At some point it is clear you will need an election or a referendum to settle it.”

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The Lib Dem leadership contender Ed Davey has told Johnson he could immediately find himself without a majority as prime minister, even if the DUP continued to prop up the Conservatives.

The tense mood in the Conservatives was underlined when Sandbach, a supporter of Rory Stewart’s campaign, tweeted text messages she received from a fellow Tory MP telling her to leave the party.

Sandbach told the BBC she had received the message after the MP had been “trawling” through a defunct WhatsApp group and found messages from her that he deemed objectionable. Julian Smith, the chief whip, has promised to investigate.

“I’m certain there were dark ops during the leadership election and you have to wonder why somebody was going through an old group that hadn’t been active for many, many, many months,” she said. “All the dark ops we have been hearing about don’t cast a good light on politicians and they don’t cast a good light on politics.”

Several moderate Tory MPs believe Johnson may struggle to hold together his coalition of supporters, which range from moderates, such as Matt Hancock and Robert Buckland, to the “spartans” of fervent Eurosceptics who have blocked Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

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One sceptical MP who saw Johnson in the last days of the campaign for MPs’ votes said he told them he believed the chances of no deal were “vanishingly small”.

Yet members of the ERG, including MPs such as Steve Baker and Mark Francois, claimed to have been told Johnson was willing to rip up the entire withdrawal agreement.

Hunt’s team believes its chances lie in skewering Johnson on the detail of his plan for exiting by 31 October, with one source saying the campaign team had “enjoyed Mark Carney’s take down of Boris’s no-deal tariffs ‘plan’ this morning on the Today programme”.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 show, the Bank of England governor rejected claims by Johnson that a rule he had described as “Gatt 24” – article 24 of the World Trade Organisation’s general agreement on tariffs and trade – would allow existing tariff arrangements to apply between a no-deal Brexit and a new agreement being reached with Brussels.

“Gatt applies if you have an agreement, not if you have decided not to have an agreement or have been unable to come to an agreement,” Carney said.

Both Johnson and Hunt attended the Local Government Association hustings on Friday morning, but left without saying anything. The pair will attend the first official Conservative leadership hustings in Birmingham on Saturday, hosted by the presenter Iain Dale, followed by 15 more events over the next four weeks, after which party members will vote.