Senior Tory MP calls for Rishi Sunak to be replaced

A senior Conservative MP has called for Rishi Sunak to be replaced as party leader and Prime Minister.

Writing in The Telegraph, Simon Clarke warned his party will be "massacred" at the next general election without a change in leadership.

He said Sunak had "gone from asset to anchor" and that "extinction is a very real possibility for our party".

Polling has consistently put Labour well ahead of the Conservatives for the last several months.

Most recently, a superpoll of over 14,000 people by YouGov suggested the Tories could drop to 169 seats - less than half of the total the party won in 2019.

Clarke, who has held various roles in government since his election in 2017, said: "The unvarnished truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred."

He added that while the PM is "decent to his core," he "does not get what Britain needs. And he is not listening to what the British people want."

The MP criticised Sunak's record on immigration, including the Rwanda bill passed last week, as well as his failure to stimulate economic growth.

Denying he wanted the top job for himself, Clarke said that with a new leader it would be possible for his party to bounce back before the general election - which must be held at the latest by next January.

"Now is not the time to despair. It is the time to act. For whether we deserve it or not, we still have the most monumental of opportunities: Keir Starmer. Labour have totally failed to seal the deal with the public," he added.

Clarke is the second Tory MP publicly calling for Sunak to go. Andrea Jenkyns submitted a no-confidence letter in November.