DAN HODGES: A snap Election if judges veto Rwanda plan? Surely it is better than a year of drift and decay

Suella Braverman believes she has found a way to save her party, and Britain, from Sir Keir Starmer. If, as Ministers expect, the Supreme Court rules this week that the Government’s Rwanda plan is illegal, she wants Rishi Sunak to call a snap ‘small boats’ General Election.

‘If the judges reject our plan, then at that point we have to go to the country,’ a close friend of the Home Secretary explained to me. ‘We have to put our case directly to the people.’

According to Braverman’s allies, this high-risk, shock-and-awe strategy has been discussed with the Prime Minister’s senior election adviser, Isaac Levido. ‘Isaac sees the advantages. He’s supportive,’ they claimed.

And what about Rishi Sunak himself?

‘He’s not there yet. But he has to be. It’s time for him to man up and grow a pair.’

Suella Braverman believes she has found a way to save her party, and Britain, from Sir Keir Starmer

If, as Ministers expect, the Supreme Court rules this week that the Government’s Rwanda plan is illegal, she wants Rishi Sunak to call a snap ‘small boats’ General Election

‘If the judges reject our plan, then at that point we have to go to the country,’ a close friend of the Home Secretary explained to me. ‘We have to put our case directly to the people’

It’s easy to see the attractions of such a dramatic ploy. As one Tory MP revealed to me: ‘Our polling shows that we’re losing a bit of support directly to Labour, primarily on the new-build estates where people are heavily mortgaged up. But by far our biggest problem is losing voters on the right of our base to Reform [the successor party to Ukip]. And they’re concerned about things like the Armistice protests and illegal immigration.’

For Braverman, who spent the past week pushing Sunak’s patience to destruction with her incendiary comments over the Met Police’s failure to crack down on what she calls ‘hate marches’, this would represent the dream campaign.

A ‘Who runs Britain’ Election in which the judges, far-Left activists, liberal lawyers and Starmer’s more radical MPs would find themselves wedged against the mass of the British people.

READ MORE: Suella Braverman is ‘very calm’ as rumours swirl that she will be sacked as Home Secretary by Rishi Sunak – while pollsters say support is growing for her over Gaza protest 

And it’s a template that’s obviously worked before. Boris Johnson’s appeal to voters to give him a mandate to ‘get Brexit done’ saw him rewarded with an 80-seat majority in 2019, and consigned Jeremy Corbyn – who many pundits had predicted could force another hung Parliament – to his East Finchley allotment.

Some Tories are also convinced that now is the perfect time to strike. ‘The cracks are starting to show in Keir Starmer’s party,’ one told me. ‘If you look at the divisions over Gaza, they’re off balance. Their activists are angry. They’d have problems mobilising in quite a few of their constituencies.’

But there would also be a major downside to calling what would, in effect, be a single-issue Election on controlling Britain’s borders.

David Cameron in 2015. Theresa May in 2017. Boris Johnson in 2019. Time and time again, the Tories have published a glossy manifesto pledging to get migration under control.

And every time they have had to return to the electorate, Border Force officer’s cap in hand, and plead: ‘OK, we haven’t managed to get a grip on things yet, but give us one more chance and we promise we’ll get it right.’

Another problem is that while Tory strategists might want to construct their entire campaign around one hot-button subject, the British people will undoubtedly have other concerns. The cost-of-living crisis. Crumbling schools. Industrial unrest. Chaos in the streets. Soaring NHS waiting times.

The list of the country’s ills is now an inordinately lengthy one. And the idea that Rishi Sunak would be able to keep voters focused exclusively on migrants trooping ashore on to the beaches of Dungeness and Broadstairs for an eight-week Election campaign is fanciful.

Johnson had the showman’s knack of keeping the spotlight and crowd fixated firmly on him.

Some Tories are also convinced that now is the perfect time to strike. ‘The cracks are starting to show in Keir Starmer’s party,’ one told me

Their campaign coffers are overflowing following Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s ‘scrambled eggs and smoked salmon’ offensive to woo the City of London, which has seen business donations soar

By contrast, Sunak struggles to have the presence of the circus’s ice cream seller.

And then there is the dominance of Labour. While it’s true some of the party’s MPs have been disconcerted by the backlash in some constituencies at Labour’s Gaza policy, that concern is not shared among Starmer or his aides. Their polling indicates minimal – if any – slippage in support.

Their campaign coffers are overflowing following Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s ‘scrambled eggs and smoked salmon’ offensive to woo the City of London, which has seen business donations soar. And Labour’s strategists insist they are already on a General Election war-footing.

READ MORE: Labour’s row over a ceasefire in Gaza deepens as insiders warn more shadow ministers may quit Keir Starmer’s front bench

‘When Rishi Sunak eventually locates his backbone, we’ll be ready and waiting,’ one told me bullishly.

Yet despite these potential drawbacks, there is one crucial factor that may just convince Rishi Sunak to throw aside his natural caution and embrace Suella Braverman’s desperate small-boats gamble.

It is that he doesn’t really have anything left to lose.

The initial Downing Street Election strategy was to go long. Hunker down, take the political flak, wait for the economy to gradually turn, then go to the country late in 2024.

But as last week’s official data revealed, the economy is not for turning. At least not to the extent necessary to radically transform the Tories’ electoral fortunes.

Growth is going to remain stagnant. Interest rates are set to remain punishingly high.

Inflation may gradually fall but, in real terms, people will continue to feel the pinch that has been digging into their family finances since lockdown. And the scope for massive tax giveaways looks to be increasingly limited.

That’s why the PM embarked on his Great Relaunch a couple of months ago, in which he suddenly dumped his Net Zero strategy, axed HS2, vowed to raise the legal age to buy cigarettes one year every year from 2027, and claimed ‘this country needs to change’.

Unsurprisingly, the public agreed with him, and Starmer’s poll lead began to widen again.

As a result, Sunak has adopted a new strategy.

‘Basically, we’ve given up,’ one Minister said ruefully. ‘The plan now is just to sit there, push some bits of paper across the Cabinet table to each other, and hope something turns up.’

Last week’s King’s Speech was an opportunity – the last major one before the Election – for Sunak to frame his political and electoral masterplan, and set traps for his opponents

Well, we can. But what’s the point? What is Rishi Sunak hoping to achieve? More AI seminars? More fruitless meetings with recalcitrant police chiefs? More bans on laughing gas and XL Bully dogs?

But nothing will turn up, because there is nothing left to turn up.

READ MORE: King’s Speech 2023 LIVE: Charles sets out Rishi Sunak’s plans at State Opening of Parliament – including ban on cigarette sales, tougher sentences for killers, tackling inflation and crackdown on Channel crossings 

Last week’s King’s Speech was an opportunity – the last major one before the Election – for Sunak to frame his political and electoral masterplan, and set traps for his opponents. Yet it was blank. Just talk about driverless cars, a ban on London pedicabs and a tax on vapes.

At this stage of the political cycle, the Tories should be hurling themselves at Labour with the ferocity and dexterity of ninjas. Instead, they’re twiddling their thumbs, gazing wistfully around, wondering where it all went wrong.

And this malaise is gradually seeping out into the nation as a whole. ‘We’d like you to postpone the Armistice Day march,’ the head of the Met Police hopefully requested of the protesters last Wednesday. ‘Nope,’ they replied. ‘Er… OK. Thanks. On you go,’ was his meek response.

The country cannot carry on like this.

Well, we can. But what’s the point? What is Rishi Sunak hoping to achieve? More AI seminars? More fruitless meetings with recalcitrant police chiefs? More bans on laughing gas and XL Bully dogs?

This week the Supreme Court could surprise us all. The judges could give the Rwanda plan the green light. Flights to Kigali could begin, the small-boats surge could be halted and the Government could appear rejuvenated.

But it seems likely the court will block it. At which point, Suella Braverman’s wild electoral ploy may not seem so wild after all.

A small-boats snap Election? Or another 12 months of dither, drift and decay?

I know which I’d prefer. And I think I know which the British people would prefer as well.

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