Nadine Dorries has become the latest Tory MP to announce that she is standing down at the next election.
The former cabinet minister said she had made the decision after “much soul searching” and as a result of the Conservatives’ plummeting poll ratings.
Speaking on her Talk TV chat show, she also took a swipe at the Tory MPs who brought down her close ally Boris Johnson as prime minister.
She said: “It’s been a big week in politics with a cabinet reshuffle, the return of Liz Truss and President Zelensky’s historic visit to the UK.
“But before we get into all of that, I’ve got some news of my own.
“After much soul searching, I have decided not to stand as an MP at the next general election. I love my constituents and I’ve loved serving them – it’s been such an honour for the best part of two decades of my life.
“However, given the poll rating of the Conservative Party, we are now likely to go to the wire in January 2025.”
Dorries went on to accuse those MPs who dumped Johnson of “stupidity” and took a swipe at Rishi Sunak’s failure to improve the Tories’ poll ratings since he became PM.
“There is no way on God’s earth that those who plotted to depose Boris Johnson expected to be in the position we’re in today,” she said.
“The Conservatives are polling worse now than in 1997 when they were thrashed by Labour.
“The elite, the faux political intellectuals, you know who I’m talking about – those who believe they know better than anyone else, bet everything on a Rishi bounce...but it never came and it was never going to.
“The party was five points behind on the day Boris was ousted … and that was a poll deficit that would have burnt away like a summer’s mist on a morning lawn in the heat of a general election campaign.
“Today it’s 24 points behind. And that, my friends, could be described as terminal. It leaves the party boxed into a corner with no exit route.”
The former culture secretary added: “Those MPs who drank the Kool-Aid and got rid of Boris Johnson are already asking themselves the question…who next?
“And I’m afraid that the lack of cohesion, the infighting and occasionally the sheer stupidity from those who think we could remove a sitting prime minister, who secured a higher percentage of the vote share than Tony Blair did in 1997, just three short years ago.
“That they could do that and the public would let us get away with it. I’m afraid it’s this behaviour I now just have to remove myself from.”
On speculation that she could be given a peerage in Johnson’s resignation honours, Dorries – who was elected MP for Mid Bedfordshire in 2005 – said: “I have heard nothing… I’m just getting through the emotional aspect of leaving a job I loved for 19 years.”
Dorries is the 19th Tory MP to announce they will not be standing at the next election.
Others include Matt Hancock, Sajid Javid and Dehenna Davison.