We face the fight of our lives, Rishi tells Tory backbenchers

RISHI Sunak last night told Tory MPs they faced the ‘fight of our lives’ at the election – as he urged them to take the battle to Labour rather than ‘turn in on ourselves’.

In a resolute speech to the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, the Prime Minister acknowledged Labour’s huge lead in the polls, but insisted it could be turned round.

‘We are in the fight of our lives,’ he said. ‘This battle will define us – when the going got tough, when the polls were against us, did we dig deep and fight or did we turn in on ourselves?’

Mr Sunak dismissed swirling rumours of a plot to remove him, saying he was confident the ‘overwhelming majority’ of Tory MPs were united behind him.

He said he was ‘damn proud’ of the Conservatives’ record ‘in the face of the most profound challenges any government has faced since the war’.

He warned that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer would ‘throw it all away’, adding: ‘We owe it our country, our party and ourselves to stop him.’

The PM said the ‘first step’ in the fightback against Labour would come in May’s local elections, when the Tories will defend mayoral contests in the West Midlands and Teesside as well as thousands of council seats.

And he revealed that they will focus on Labour’s recent record in power, in Wales and in cities such as London and Birmingham, which is facing a toxic package of tax hikes and service cuts after being pushed to the edge of bankruptcy.

Tory backbencher Jonathan Gullis said the PM had ‘broad support’ across the party and railed against his Tory critics, saying that he wanted to ‘call out those idiots for being idiots’. He added: ‘A tiny minority of Right-wingers are agitating, but it’s certainly no room I’m in.’