London, Thanasis Gavos

Simon Clarke, MP and former housing minister in the short-lived Liz Truss government, calls for the replacement of Rishi Sunak as the leader of the Conservative Party before this year’s elections in a Telegraph article, sparking a new round of intra-party confrontation in the British government party.

“The stark truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election process in which we will be slaughtered,” writes Mr Clarke, one of the prime minister’s most vocal critics from the party’s far right wing, although a former deputy minister at the Ministry Finance under Sunak’s ministry.

He warns that with Labor looming in power and Keir Starmer likely to remain prime minister for at least a decade, as well as the possible re-emergence of Nigel Farage on the political scene, “annihilation is a very real possibility for our party”.

Mainly responsible for this outlook he blames Mr. Sunak who “fails to inspire”, who has turned into “a weight” and who is not at all popular with voters. “He doesn’t understand what Britain wants. And he doesn’t listen to what the British people want,” adds Simon Clarke, with particular reference to his not strict enough immigration policy.

He therefore recommends a change of leader once again through an internal party process that “doesn’t have to last more than a week”.

As he writes, as “ridiculous” as some MPs think a new change in party leadership is, it is even more ridiculous that the Conservatives are sleepwalking towards “extermination”.

The article has drawn strong reactions from Rishi Sunak’s supporters and non-party supporters alike.

For example, ex-Brexit Secretary Sir David Davis commented that “it’s quite silly”, former Defense Secretary Sir Liam Fox accused Mr Clarke of “an agenda to destabilize the party”, and former Home Secretary Priti Patel spoke out against “divisive navel-gazing ».