Badenoch urges plotters to ‘stop messing’ and says they are ‘not my friends’

Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch has urged the Tory MPs plotting against Rishi Sunak to “stop messing around” and “get behind” the Prime Minister.

She said that those who were suggesting she become Mr Sunak’s successor were “not my friends”, and denied she had any involvement in the attempts.

“I fully support the Prime Minister and I have said many times that I stood to be leader and the last time we had a contest after Liz Truss resigned, I said that the right person to lead the country was Rishi Sunak and I still believe that to be the case,” she told Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips programme.

It comes after Sir Simon Clarke, who served as housing secretary under Liz Truss for less than two months, last week called on his Tory colleagues to “change leader” to avoid an “impending catastrophe”.

His calls have proved divisive within the Conservative Party, with many MPs criticising the former Cabinet minister and insisting Mr Sunak has strong support within the party.

Asked what her message to Sir Simon and others who were aiming to remove the Prime Minister, Ms Badenoch said: “They need to stop messing around and get behind the leader.

“The fact of the matter is most people in the country are not interested in all of this Westminster tittle-tattle and, quite frankly, the people who keep putting my name in there are not my friends.

“They didn’t care about me. They didn’t care about my family or what this would entail. They’re just stirring.”

She insisted that it was only a “small number of MPs” who were leading calls for Mr Sunak to go, and that the response to Sir Simon last week showed that that “should be the end of the matter”.

Ms Badenoch has frequently led the ConservativeHome rankings of Cabinet ministers, which is based on polling among party members and activists, and most recently had a rating of 63.9 to Mr Sunak’s -26.5.

She also came out top in a poll asking who should be the next Conservative leader after Mr Sunak, with 38 per cent of respondents backing her.

Responding to the figures, Ms Badenoch insisted that “this is not a popularity contest” and the focus should be on “running the country”.

“We have so many issues to deal with controlling inflation growing the economy continuing with the plan that Rishi Sunak has put in place and, quite frankly, we can’t just keep treating prime ministers as if they’re disposable,” she continued.

“Prime Ministers are human beings they deal with a lot and people like me and the Cabinet, members of Parliament and quite frankly all politicians and the country wants to see him survive and do well. We want to see him succeed.”

She added: “We should not be trying to drag out Prime Ministers on the basis of a popularity contest.