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Senior Tories have warned against another round of damaging infighting after former Cabinet minister Simon Clarke called for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to be replaced as leader to avoid a Conservative ‘massacre’ at the forthcoming general election.
Former defence secretary Ben Wallace dismissed Clarke’s call to oust Sunak, saying ‘division and another PM would lead to the certain loss of power’.
Wallace was one of a series of current and former ministers who publicly rejected Clarke’s challenge to the prime minister’s authority as Tories rallied round Sunak.
Writing in the Telegraph, former levelling up secretary Clarke insisted ‘extinction is a very real possibility’ for the party if Sunak leads it into the election this year.
‘The unvarnished truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred,’ he said.
Other senior party figures immediately hit back, urging colleagues to ‘unite and get on with the job’.
Wallace said: ‘My colleague Sir Simon Clarke MP is wrong. The way to win the next election is to tackle inflation and grow the economy.
‘Rishi is doing just that. Division and another PM would lead to the certain loss of power. We need to focus on delivering for the public not divisive rowing.’
Postal affairs minister Kevin Hollinrake acknowledged there was a sense of ‘panic’ in some sections of the party, but said Clarke’s view was not widely held.
He told Times Radio: ‘Of course, some people panic at a difficult time. This is not the overwhelming view of the party.’
Clarke and former minister Dame Andrea Jenkyns are the only Tory MPs to have publicly called for Sunak to go, far short of the 53 members of Parliament required to submit letters to the backbench 1922 Committee to trigger a confidence vote.
There is unease within the Conservative ranks at Sunak’s failure to close the opinion poll gap with Labour, but there is also recognition that yet another leadership contest this close to an election is unlikely to improve the party’s reputation with the public.
Former Brexit secretary David Davis said: ‘The party and the country are sick and tired of MPs putting their own leadership ambitions ahead of the UK’s best interests.’
Former home secretary Priti Patel said: ‘At this critical time for our country, with challenges at home and abroad, our party must focus on the people we serve and deliver for the country.
‘Engaging in facile and divisive self-indulgence only serves our opponents it’s time to unite and get on with the job.’
Clarke was a key ally of former prime minister Liz Truss, but the PA news agency understands she does not back his intervention.
He was among 11 Conservative MPs who voted against the prime minister’s Rwanda Bill at its third reading earlier this month, despite Sunak seeing off a wider Tory rebellion.
Labour’s Pat McFadden said the Conservatives had formed a ‘circular firing squad’, adding: ‘There are many good reasons for getting rid of this clapped-out Conservative government, and liberating the British people from endless bouts of Tory infighting is certainly one of them. ’
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper branded the Tory infighting ‘utterly ludicrous’ and said voters were ‘sick and tired of this never-ending Conservative Party soap opera’.
By David Hughes, Dominic McGrath and Nina Lloyd, PA
source: PA
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