Challengers falling short says rebel who U-turned

A CONSERVATIVE MP who last week withdrew a letter of no confidence in the Prime Minister accused the would-be leadership contenders of ‘falling short’.

The MP told the Mail on Sunday Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, the two frontrunners to succeed Boris Johnson, have not been convincing on their commitment to ‘levelling up’.

The MP submitted a letter to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee of Tory MPs, the previous week after becoming angry with the Prime Minister over repeated revelations of parties at Downing Street and the Government’s handling of the scandal.

The Tory MP warned colleagues considering submitting letters of no confidence: ‘They should be very careful we don’t end up jumping out of Boris’s frying pan and into Rishi’s free market fire.

‘Rishi and Liz have been showing a lot of leg that they are more about free market, which means less investment. This threatened levelling up for constituents if you are an MP in an area of deprivation.’

It requires 54 letters to trigger a confidence vote. Last week a group of MPs elected in 2019 submitted letters in a coordinated bid dubbed the Pork Pie Plot.

However, momentum stalled after Christian Wakeford, the former Tory MP for Bury South, defected to Labour. As many as seven no-confidence letters were reportedly withdrawn by Tory MPs as a result.

The MP who withdrew the no-confidence letter said Mr Johnson was still seen as more likely to deliver on previous spending commitments to constituencies.