Conservative MPs are set to meet to discuss ousting Kemi Badenoch as party leader, according to numerous reports.
The Tories suffered a disastrous set of local elections last week, losing 15 councils and 674 seats as they haemorrhaged votes to Reform and the Lib Dems.
Badenoch had seemingly already been skating on thin ice before this, and Thursday’s results may prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for some Tory MPs.
Speaking to the Independent, two senior backbenchers said they were calling a meeting with fellow parliamentarians to discuss replacing Badenoch as leader.
One MP said: “We cannot continue as we are and she [Badenoch] is just not up to the task.”
Another told the Independent: “These results were actually worse than last year’s general election. We have somehow gone backwards.”
According to the publication, a number of Tories are understood to have contacted Robert Jenrick to stand again for leadership – just six months after he lost a leadership vote to Badenoch – whilst James Cleverly is also rumoured to be positioning himself as a centrist candidate for a potential leadership contest.
The Times reports that discussions of replacing Badenoch are also taking place among Conservative donors and former party aides.
“If this half-hearted experiment is allowed to go on for another 18 months the situation could become irrecoverable. Ditching a leader of the opposition with no track record of success is not the same as ditching a PM. She is not going to change. MPs need to ask themselves if they can seriously see her leading a successful general election campaign where the workload and scrutiny is multiplied enormously,” one former No 10 aide told the newspaper.
Another plotter added: “The Conservative Party basically is its councillors. They’re the ones that organise everything. If next year were to be a result as bad as this year, in which we were wiped out in key councils like Staffordshire and Kent, it will cease to be a functioning party.”
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