‘All hell will break loose’: General election impossible to avoid if Rishi Sunak made PM, says Nadine Dorries
Boris Johnson loyalist Nadine Dorries said it will be “impossible” to avoid a general election after her former boss pulled out of the Tory leadership contest.
The former culture secretary – the uber Johnson loyalist – warned that “all hell would break” lose if favourite Rishi Sunak is installed as prime minister in the coming hours.
Fellow Johnson loyalist Sir Christopher Chope also called for a general election – saying the Tory party was becoming “ungovernable”.
Mr Sunak could coronated PM today if his rival Penny Mordaunt fails to reach the threshold of 100 nominations from Tory MPs by 2pm. She currently has only 25 public backers.
Echoing arguments made by Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP, Ms Dorries tweeted: “It will now be impossible to avoid a GE.”
She added: “Boris would have won members vote – already had a mandate from the people. Rishi and Penny, despite requests from Boris, refused to unite which would have made governing utterly impossible. Penny actually asked him to step aside for her.”
Attacking Mr Sunak further on LBC, Ms Dorries said: “If Rishi becomes automatically prime minister by Tuesday, I think all hell will break loose … He’s got no mandate whatsoever to be prime minister of this country.”
The ex-cabinet minister added: “He lost the leadership election to Liz Truss, he hasn’t won this one, he won’t have gone to the members for the vote, and I think it will be very, very difficult for him to sustain the pressure not to go for a general election.”
But key Sunak backer Grant Shapps, the home secretary, insisted there was no need for a general election. “We elect a party and we elect individuals,” he told Sky News.
Mr Shapps admitted it was “unusual” to have three prime ministers in as many months, but claimed Mr Sunak had a legitimate mandate to deliver the 2019 Tory manifesto.
He argued that Liz Truss’s radical tax-cutting plan was the real “diversion” from the manifesto and Mr Sunak would be “more authentic” in delivering Tory promises.
Mr Johnson withdrew around 9pm on Sunday – despite insisting that there was a “very good chance” he could have been back in No 10 by the end of the week. He added: “You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.”
Labour’s shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry said the Tories lost their “last desperate reason” for avoiding a general election when Mr Johnson declared he would not run again for leader.
She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “I thought that that was their last desperate reason for not having a general election … We should have had a general election anyway.”
Sir Christopher Chope said a general election could be on the way – saying the party would become “ungovernable” once Mr Sunak or Ms Mordaunt is at No 10.
“If the people who are now seeking the crown want to have the respect that comes from a mandate, the best way to get that respect is winning a mandate from the people, and that’s why I think a general election is essentially the only answer,” he told the Today programme.
Sir Christopher added: “We now have the prospect of having a Conservative party leader who doesn’t have a mandate from the country and won’t even have a mandate from the membership either.”
However, Mr Johnson’s former spokesman Will Walden said many of his allies are “angry” at being marched up the hill for no good reason.
“The only people he has let down this time are the 50 or so colleagues who went public and went over the top for him … A lot of them clearly are angry at meaningless promises,” he told LBC.
