More than a few disgruntled backbenchers: Tory rebels can make life very difficult for Boris Johnson

Perhaps taking their cue from the defiant militancy of the RMT union, Conservative backbenchers hostile to the prime minister are threatening a “vote strike” to disrupt the legislative programme.

Given that there are 148 such MPs, even a fraction of them would be sufficient to destabilise the government. Indeed, if all of them acted as a solid bloc – which of course they are not – they would be easily the third largest grouping in the House of Commons.

There may be both more and less to this than meets the eye. Less, because the disparate group of critics will not be whipped and organised in the disciplined manner that, say, the European Research Group were during the Brexit saga. Instead, there will be different knots of colleagues who share motives and outlook, and some individuals who will follow their own conscience.

All, though, will be emboldened by the prime minister’s apparent refusal to learn any lessons from the experience of the confidence vote. “One is enough” is his motto, but he knows it is nowhere near sufficient to sustain him through the rest of the parliament, or even until the autumn.

The threatened rebellions are more significant than a few disgruntled backbenchers, precisely because they are a mixed bag, and more difficult to appease. Different MPs will oppose and seek to wreck different sorts of legislation. They will target measures that were either not in the manifesto, or which are so badly thought through that they don’t deserve to be enacted or implemented.

Those who want to stop the spiteful and futile privatisation of Channel 4 may be perfectly happy with breaking the Northern Ireland protocol or sending refugees to Rwanda. They will act as a set of different guerrilla forces and lone wolves, and they will make life very difficult for the prime minister. He could expel them for their misdemeanours, but that might simply make matters worse.

The one thing the rebels might all coalesce around is the call for lower taxes to help ameliorate the cost of living crisis – VAT or income taxes. Both from the point of view of social justice and for traditional Thatcherite reasons, tax cuts are especially attractive to MPs with an eye to the next election. No doubt the prime minister, a man happy to splash the cash to maintain his hold on office, is sympathetic to their pleas.

However, the Treasury, as ever, is likely to continue to be resistant, given the current levels of debt and borrowing. Given their relative political strengths, though, and the prime minister’s rather desperate position, he might well prevail on Rishi Sunak to gamble with the public finances. It is likely to be one of the defining struggles within government in the coming months.

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Nor does the prime minister seem, so far, to have much fresh to offer those dissatisfied with his performance. An early cabinet reshuffle is being discounted, perhaps because it would merely deposit more embittered ex-ministers on the backbenchers looking for revenge. If he does try to find the money for tax cuts, in a stagnant economy there will be even less for him to “deliver” on levelling up and keep the promises he made on improving public services. The continuing crises in the NHS are generating unhelpful headlines and public disillusionment with the breezy, boosterish pledges in the 2019 manifesto.

Above all, even his ministers seem not to have much notion about what the Johnson administration is actually “for”, beyond the slogans and the selective statistics. Where is the plan to boost investment and productivity? Where is the counter-inflationary strategy? Where can the medium-term fiscal strategy be found? Where are all the new hospitals? When will Brexit fulfil its promise? These are the kind of questions that the public should be able to answer; but the fact is that Conservative ministers and Mr Johnson himself find it impossible to reply with conviction and evidence of delivery.

Little wonder that the parliamentary Conservative Party yearns for fresh leadership and a clear sense of direction. Even if Mr Johnson gave them one, they wouldn’t believe it. It is a kind of tragedy. No wonder they’re going on a vote strike.