Vote Leave mastermind Dominic Cummings is in the process of conducting focus groups across the country as he prepares to launch a new party to rival or even replace the Conservatives.
Boris Johnson’s former chief aide has revealed his intention to launch the ‘Start-up Party’ in an interview with the i newspaper, believed to be his first since 2020.
It comes amid dire polling for the Conservative Party and the very realistic threat of electoral wipeout at the next election.
“The Tories now obviously represent nothing except a continuation of the sh** show; higher taxes, worse violent crime, more debt, anti-entrepreneurs, public services failing, immigration out of control”, Cummings told the newspaper.
“But Labour I think will not alter the ultimate trajectory very much, they’ll be continuity Treasury, continuity David Cameron, George Osborne, Rishi Sunak, so everything will keep failing and everyone will be even more miserable by 2026 than they are now.
“If Nigel Farage un-retires, the Tories could easily be driven down to double-digit seats and then discussions of a Start-Up Party and replacing them will go from a very fringe idea to being a very mainstream idea,” he said.
His proposed party has not yet been formed. However, reports emerged on Thursday that Cummings had been targeting focus groups across the country to obtain voters’ views on the proposed party’s possible success at the ballot box.
The former head of the Vote Leave campaign vowed that it would be “completely different from the other parties”.
He maintained that “most people in the country would get behind” a party which “ruthlessly focused on the voters, not on Westminster and the old media”.
In a series of blogs he revealed that he was sounding out donors and activists with the aim of launching his new party.
Cummings also argued that Sunak had failed to pursue the type of agenda that voters wanted when they gave the Tories a landslide majority in 2019.
He said that despite having “the highest IQ in parliament and the toughest work ethic”, Sunak had “no message, no political strategy worth spit and no grip on power”.
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