Cleverly likens Tory plots against Sunak to leaving plane without parachute

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Home secretary James Cleverly has warned Conservative MPs considering a leadership challenge to Rishi Sunak after next week’s local elections that an attempted putsch would be a “catastrophic idea”.

Cleverly said on Thursday that Tory MPs who were plotting a move against Sunak if their party crashes to heavy defeats in local and mayoral elections on May 2 had no plan beyond hoping a new leader would make things “randomly better”.

“If you’re going to jump out of an aeroplane please make sure you have a parachute before you leave the aeroplane,” he told a Westminster press lunch. “Don’t say you’re going to work it out on the way down.

“I think those people who think another leadership campaign — as truncated as it might be — between now and the election is anything other than a catastrophic idea . . . I don’t get it,” he added.

Fifty-two Conservatives MPs would have to submit no confidence letters in Sunak to trigger a leadership contest. A majority of Tory MPs regard such an idea as ludicrous, but do not discount the possibility it could happen.

“Rishi would win a confidence vote but it would be clearly damaging,” said one former cabinet minister.

Westminster is awash with rumours that Sunak could decide to head off a possible leadership challenge by announcing the date of the general election imminently, forcing his party into line.

Sunak’s allies said the rumours were “complete nonsense” and were being circulated by Labour to cause mischief. They said the prime minister is still planning for an autumn election.

Cleverly urged Tory MPs not to “feed the psychodrama”.

“We should have the discipline to stay focused on what we’ve achieved in government and what we’re planning to do next,” he said.

Cleverly said Sunak was “an incredibly hard working person” who had inherited a “really difficult position” after the pandemic, the inflationary spike and the chaos of Liz Truss’s short premiership.

In a wry speech, Cleverly claimed he had been replaced as foreign secretary by David Cameron last November because of “diversity issues” at the top of the cabinet. “There weren’t any Old Etonians,” he said.

Cleverly said that Sunak had looked him in the eye when he broke the news of his move from the Foreign Office to the Home Office. “He had to stand on his wallet to do it,” he joked.

Sunak’s diminutive stature and wealth are two of Labour’s favourite attack lines on the prime minister.