Former minister calls for Sunak to go – or face ‘election massacre’

Here we go. Ever since 11 Tory MPs voted against the Safety of Rwanda Bill last week, talk has resurfaced that the party has a death wish. The problem is that different MPs define that as different things. While a mass of Conservative MPs say the rebellion over Sunak’s plan to stop the boats amounts to self-destructive behaviour, the rebels argue that sticking with Rishi Sunak as leader when the party’s polling is so bad that it amounts to self-harm. Tonight one such rebel has gone public with these thoughts. Step forward Simon Clarke.

Clarke – who served in Liz Truss’s cabinet – has written an column for Wednesday’s Telegraph entitled ‘Replace Sunak or face decade of decline under Starmer’. In the piece, he argues that Sunak’s:

uninspiring leadership is the main obstacle to our recovery: we need a leader who shares instincts of the majority.

It is now beyond doubt that whilst the Prime Minister is far from solely responsible for our present predicament, his uninspiring leadership is the main obstacle to our recovery.