What will happen to the Conservative Party if it loses the next election?

It seems quite likely that the Conservatives will lose the next election, so the plotting to become the next leader of the opposition has begun.

In a way, this is a victory for Rishi Sunak, because it means that the idea of Boris Johnson returning after a disastrous showing in the local elections in May has wilted under the scorn it deserves.

The Tory party has, in effect, decided that Sunak will lead them into the next general election, and that it will weather the consequences of that decision.

Thus some Tory MPs suddenly find themselves thinking about what a Labour government would be like. For a few, it means imagining being at the count in their local sports hall on election night and deciding that they would rather not be there.

I don’t know why Jo Gideon, the new Tory MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, majority 670, has announced that she will not contest the next election, but there are others in marginal seats who would rather leave than lose.

For other Tory MPs, it means wondering who would lead them in opposition. Liz Truss has told allies that “she doesn’t want to put herself forward”, according to The Times today. But “she’s setting the stage for the ideological war to come”.

Jacob Rees-Mogg was said to be thinking about a tilt at the leadership. He is to host his own show on GB News, which could either be a platform or a trap door. Suella Braverman, who came sixth in last year’s first leadership election, has hardly stopped campaigning for the coveted “most right-wing candidate” slot ever since. And Kemi Badenoch, who came fourth and whose tiny Brexit department of international trade achieved a reverse takeover of the business department this week, continues to gain in standing.

However, the two big questions about a Tory leader of the opposition are (a) does Boris Johnson want it? And (b) how far from the centre ground will the party membership be by then?

The answer to both questions may be influenced by the scale of defeat. If the Conservatives are the largest party in a hung parliament, only just short of a majority, it might be tempting for Johnson to try to make life difficult for Keir Starmer at the head of a minority government. Equally, if Tory members feel that they could be back in government soon, they might be prepared to make the necessary compromises with the electorate.

On the other hand, politics is governed by tides of emotion as well as by rational calculation. That is precisely Sunak’s problem at the moment. One old political hand observed to me mournfully the other day: “We deserve the failures that we get. Rishi has done everything right and nobody cares.”

Thus it may be that, even if the Conservatives lose by a narrow margin, the party membership will want to resume what Michael Gove called its “holiday from reality”, which was so rudely interrupted after 49 days of Truss’s premiership.

In a mirror image of Labour’s embrace of Jeremy Corbyn, it may be that Tory grassroots members would relish the chance to advocate Trussonomics from the safety of impotent opposition, without having to worry about what the markets think.

That is why I think that those New Labour people who say that they wish they had dealt with Corbyn when he had the chance may have it wrong. It may be that, even if Corbyn had been expelled in the New Labour years, the party would have found a way to have its primal scream.

In a way, this speculation is premature, because there are too many unknown variables. I think Johnson is likely to survive the Committee of Privileges inquiry, but he may not. And 18 months is long enough for the roster of contenders for the Tory leadership to change – probably several times.

What is clear, though, is that the yearning among party members for the simplicities of tax cuts and a smaller state is likely to increase rather than diminish. What they want is Trussism without Truss.

In other words, it is likely to continue to prove disastrous for parties to allow members to choose their leaders. If leadership elections were restricted to MPs alone, it would be possible for the Tory party to adjust to the failings of a Labour government and maximise its chances of an early return to power.

Last year, Tory MPs were able to take emergency action to fix the nomination threshold to produce the result they wanted in the second leadership election – even that depended on Johnson seeing sense and withdrawing – which is not something they can do next time.

But by leaving the final choice of leader in the hands of grassroots members, the Tories risk shutting themselves out of power for several parliaments.