British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is suffering from a mass departure of MPs with the number of resignations surpassing the level the Conservative Party suffered before a landslide election defeat in the 1997 election.
Sunak, in power since 2022, this week called a national election for July 4, but his party is far behind in the opinion polls after a period of high inflation, low economic growth and a steady stream of political scandals.
The number of Conservative members of parliament who will not be standing at the next election reached 76 yesterday, more than the 72 in the run up to the 1997 election, according to the House of Commons Library.
Conservative members of parliament said so many colleagues were leaving because it was unlikely the party would win the election and many had grown tired of the infighting and polarisation in parliament.
All the opinion polls predict Sunak will lose the election with his Conservatives trailing the opposition Labour Party by about 20 percentage points.
Only 12 Conservative MPs said they would stand down in the run up to 2017 election, while 32 stood down before the 2019 election, according to the House of Commons Library.
Defence minister Grant Shapps said earlier there was nothing ‘unusual’ about the number of MPs leaving. “You often get a lot standing down at election time,” he told Sky News.
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