Even before Sussan Ley and Dan Tehan confirmed the Liberal party was dumping its support for net zero policies in a packed press conference on Thursday afternoon, Coalition rightwingers were sizing up for their next fight.

After weeks of messy posturing on climate and energy policy – slowly eroding Ley’s authority in the party room and credibility with voters – the Liberal-National MP Garth Hamilton put colleagues on notice that immigration was the next policy battle line for conservatives.

Hamilton, a Queenslander who previously backed Andrew Hastie for the leadership, warned that thrashing out an immigration policy for the next election needed to be handled “a lot better”.

The statement hinted at the danger facing Ley, both immediate and existential.

Events of the past few days demonstrate she has to accede to the demands of conservative Liberals and Nationals MPs to keep the Coalition together and hold on to her fledgling leadership.

But longer term, Ley risks compromising on everything, standing for nothing and becoming leader in name only. Both paths almost certainly end in rejection by voters.

Just six months on from the 3 May election, Liberal supporters might be wondering just how things got so bad.

Elected as a moderate who promised to reflect and respect voters who had abandoned the Coalition under Peter Dutton, Ley’s efforts to establish herself as opposition leader have been consistently undermined by her colleagues’ ill discipline and political hot-headedness.

© The Guardian