Rishi Sunak suffered a blow as leaked messages from a Conservative Facebook group showed party members ridiculing his performance in the first televised debate.
The prime minister narrowly won the contest, according to a Yougov instant reaction poll, by 51 percent to 49 percent over Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.
But it appeared that he had failed to convince many Tories according to remarks on the Conservatives Party Members Facebook Group, a private group for verified members, has 3,000 Conservative members including MPs Andrew Rosindell, Joy Morrisey, John Penrose and Virginia Crosby.
Leaked posts from a Tory Members-only Facebook group show members slating Rishi Sunak’s debate performance this evening.
One current Conservative councillor said: “Sadly PM is repetitive and aggressive to the onlooker”, adding that “I’m staunch Conservative but many of my family and friends are waivers and I’m not sure he’s doing a good job at convincing my peers to vote blue at the moment.”.
Another member agreed: “I too, am a staunch Conservative but no lover of Sunak.”
Another member said: “Sunak is rattled, this clown will send the party into oblivion’.
One member complained: “Rishi is starting to repeat himself and interrupting.”
A member also added that they “100% agree with 1 comment Starmer said ‘you are not the Conservative party that Churchill was running’.”
Earlier today, one former Conservative councillor bemoaned the way that Sunak had “dealt (or not) with the people traffickers/boats” and “the ludicrous and dragged out lack of getting to grips with just this headlin[e] policy.”
Another member earlier stated that “the only story I see for the last 14 years is failure after failure,” with another saying that the Conservatives “had 5 years and we effed up [...] 4 weeks will change nothing.”
Others distanced themselves from Sunak, saying that he was a “prime minister landed on us without any input [...] what do you expect honestly?”
The reactions from Tory members comes as the party struggles to win back 2019 voters for the party when Boris Johnson was leader.
According to a recent Techne UK poll on 40 percent of Tory voters still support the party with almost one in five switching to Nigel Farage’s reform.
Mr Sunak’s messaging in the debate on tax cuts, defence and immigration was meant to try to tackle the loss of the Tory base support.
Party bosses have been particularly hit by the decision by Nigel Farage to run as a candidate for Reform in the election.
