Former home secretary James Cleverly has warned his party it needs to “get our act together” after the Tories were hit with a damaging leak from the shadow cabinet.
Leadership frontrunner Kemi Badenoch hit out at her rival Suella Braverman, saying she appeared to be having a “very public” nervous breakdown, as the Conservative frontbench met for the first time since losing power.
She is also reported to have attacked Rishi Sunak’s decision to call an early election, calling his choice to leave D-Day commemorations early “disastrous” and said colleagues including Penny Mordaunt would have kept their seats if he had stayed longer in France.
Mr Cleverly warned his party against “bitter infighting” ahead of the race to replace Mr Sunak as leader.
“That is exactly how we ended up here,” he wrote in The Times.
He added: “We must get our act together. We need to unite in order to deliver.
“It will take humility and hard work, to recover our reputation for competence and integrity, to rebuild trust in our party, and unite behind a broad platform that will give people a reason to vote Conservative again.”
At the first shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the shadow housing secretary hit out at the former prime minister’s decision to call an early general election without informing his cabinet, describing the move as a mistake and bordering on “unconstitutional”.
She accused Mr Sunak of instead first telling a small group of colleagues, including his parliamentary private secretary Craig Williams, who she is said to have called a “buffoon” after he admitted placing a bet on the election date.
The Times reported Ms Badenoch is concerned the “enormity” of the Conservative Party’s landslide defeat is not being grasped by some colleagues and that she is urging a thorough post-mortem with lessons to be learned.
Mr Sunak had reportedly opened the meeting with an apology.
Ms Badenoch’s remarks come after a number of shadow cabinet ministers paid tribute to Mr Sunak, with shadow chancellor Jeremy Hunt praising his “work ethic, dignity and commitment to public service”, which he said prevented the party suffering an even worse defeat.
A source told The Times of their surprise at how Ms Badenoch had “ripped into” Mr Sunak despite his apology.
Meanwhile, furious Tory MPs have claimed there is a ‘plot’ to determine who replaces Rishi Sunak after controversy over the election of a new chair of the influential 1922 Committee.
