Conservative MPs have rallied around Rishi Sunak as a former minister who called for him to quit said he felt he was shouting “iceberg” on the Titanic.
Sir Simon Clarke was roundly criticised by Tory colleagues for writing that Sunak should be replaced as party leader in a scathing opinion piece in the Telegraph.
One Tory MP from the 2019 intake said Clarke, 39, who was housing secretary in Liz Truss’s short-lived administration, should lose the whip for undermining the PM in an election year.
“He’s a tosser,” they said, and referred to other recent articles in the paper. “A guy out for revenge for the failed Truss experiment relying on a single Telegraph poll which was paid for by Rishi’s enemies to discredit him.”
Tobias Ellwood, the former defence minister, said: “It’s been interesting how his comments have prompted an impressive rally of support for the PM and against Clarke. I suspect this may deter others from following such a reckless call for yet another leadership campaign.”
In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Clarke, knighted in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours, likened himself to someone shouting “iceberg” as the Titanic heads towards disaster.
“I totally respect the strong views that something like this evokes,” he said. “No one likes that guy that’s shouting ‘iceberg’ but I suspect that people will be even less happy if we hit the iceberg.
“And we are on course to do that … I don’t want a decade of decline under [Keir] Starmer. I really worry that we’re on course for a shattering course.”
In a particularly humiliating development, Clarke has been removed from an event to launch a free-market Conservative group he had worked on alongside Truss and Jacob Rees-Mogg.
A source close to Truss said Clarke would no longer be appearing at the launch event of Popular Conservatism on 6 February.
Tory MPs from all wings of the party joined in to criticise Clarke on Wednesday. There was not a single message in support of him on the Conservative MPs’ WhatsApp group, according to one source.
Kwasi Kwarteng, who was Truss’s chancellor, told Times Radio: “I don’t agree with Simon … I think to change the leadership now, without a general election, would be very unwise.
“It was an odd intervention. The thing that struck me is that I think every single person, and there have been lots of people, have really jumped on him and said: ‘What are you doing? Get behind the leader. You’re not speaking for the vast majority of people in the party.’ He’s very much a lone voice on this.”
Another Tory MP, Stephen Hammond, told Times Radio that Clarke should “keep quiet”.
Sunak was greeted by particularly loud cheers from his backbenchers as he entered the Commons for prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.
Starmer accused Sunak of “endlessly fighting with his own MPs”.
“We have seen this story time and time again with this lot, party first, country second,” the Labour leader said.
Asked afterwards what his message was to Tory MPs who are calling for his resignation, Sunak’s press secretary replied: “What, Simon Clarke?”
On being reminded that one other MP, Andrea Jenkyns, had urged Sunak to go, she said: “They are both known critics. That is their view. Clearly, lots of other Conservative MPs disagree with them.”
The regular 1922 Committee meeting of backbench Tory MPs ended after just 15 minutes. Asked if Clarke was there, one MP asked sarcastically: “Who?” Another said that if Clarke had come, “we would have had tar and feathers ready”.
Some Tory MPs privately agree with Clarke’s criticisms of Sunak but think that the idea of replacing him is fanciful. One former minister said: “This is unwise as there is no alternative plan.”
Clarke’s intervention has raised further questions about a major YouGov poll that was commissioned by a shadowy group called the “Conservative Britain Alliance” and published with great fanfare in the Telegraph last week.
After asking those surveyed initially who they would favour between Starmer and Sunak, the poll then asked voters to carry out a “hypothetical thought experiment” where they chose between Starmer and a new Conservative leader who is tough on migration, cuts taxes for working people and gets NHS waiting lists down.
YouGov published a clarification of its methodology on Wednesday after criticism, including from Manchester politics professor, Rob Ford, who called it “one of the worst poll questions I’ve ever seen”. It is not known who paid for the polling.
In his piece, Clarke argued that Sunak “is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred” because “he does not get what Britain needs. And he is not listening to what the British people want.”
