Suella Braverman accused Rishi Sunak of digging the party into a hole and said it’s down to him to sort it out as the PM was branded a ‘lame duck’ by fed-up Tories
Suella Braverman has challenged Rishi Sunak to “start shovelling” after the Tories’ disastrous local election battering.
The sacked former Home Secretary warned that defeats across the country will look like a “mere tremor” on general election night if the PM doesn’t get his act together. While Tory plotters appear to have thrown in the towel for now, a senior Conservative branded Mr Sunak a “lame duck”.
Ms Braverman said it’s now down to the PM to sort out the mess the party’s in – but said changing leader now won’t work. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, she said: “The hole to dig us out is the PM’s, and it’s time for him to start shovelling.”
The Tories lost control of 10 councils and over 470 seats as voters delivered their verdict in devastating style. West Midlands mayor Andy Street was among the high-profile casualties in a backlash against Government chaos.
Ms Braverman said she and colleagues had “shed tears of sadness” as Conservative councillors were cast out. She said No10 should take little comfort in one of the only Tory victories – Ben Houchen clinging on in Tees Valley – branding it an “outlier”. She demanded the PM “change course” and claimed she’d been confronted on doorsteps by voters who told her: “Show some backbone.”
Her intervention comes as a disgruntled senior Tory told the Sunday Express: “Rishi must take a lot of the blame for what’s happened. He’s a lame duck and it looks like we’ll all be limping on to defeat at the general election now.”
It had been tipped that if the Tories lost mayoral elections in the West Midlands and Tees Valley, Mr Sunak could face a leadership challenge in coming days. Lord Houchen’s win – with a massively depleted majority – settled nerves and the PM was on hand to bask in the result.
But Ms Braverman said the Government should claim no credit for that win. She wrote: “It would be reckless to treat the victory in Teeside as evidence of the path to victory at the general election. Ben Houchen’s win is an outlier, focussed on his leadership and thanks to his delivery, not the Government’s.” She said the huge losses and “crushing defeat” in London – along with losses in Dorset and North Yorkshire give a better view.
She concluded: “Either we start fighting to win now, or we’ll have no one else to blame when this week’s political earthquake is made to look like a mere tremor come the general election night.”