Conservative civil war has broken out once more – and social media is having a pretty predictable response.
Former cabinet minister Simon Clarke called for PM Rishi Sunak to be kicked out of office on Tuesday night, claiming the Tories would be “massacred” if he stays at the helm for the next general election.
Clarke, who served in government under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, is the most seniorTory to openly call for the PM’s removal from No.10.
It comes after a series of opinion polls suggested the Conservatives are lagging dramatically behind the Labour Party.
Clarke was one of the 11 Conservative rebels who voted against Sunak’s flagship Rwanda bill last week.
However, it doesn’t look like many other Tories are (at least publicly) rallying behind Clarke just yet.
A flurry of senior Conservative MPs including one-time Brexit secretary David Davis, former defence secretary Liam Fox, and ex-home secretary Priti Patel denounced Clarke’s intervention as “silly” and “self indulgence”.
Lobby hacks shared ruder responses from other members of the party on X (formerly Twitter).
Kicking Sunak out of office would mean the Tories would need to elect its fourth leader since the 2019 general election – and the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
The civil war does not stop there, either.
A former Tory minister Conor Burns told Truss to “shut up” after it was revealed the previous prime minister is trying to establish a new movement called Popular Conservatism – a group backed by none other than Clarke.
Social media was watching all this drama unfold of course – and users wasted no time getting stuck in with their own takes.
But there was a common theme among the reactions on X – the call for a general election, now, rather than in the second half of 2024.
Although, some users did just take the opportunity to slam the Conservative Party in general...