Senior Conservatives have begun to hurl bitter recriminations as the party heads towards the worst election defeat in its history — with Rishi Sunak the target of his colleagues’ deepening wrath. Hours before the prime minister conceded defeat to Sir Keir Starmer, Tory grandees and candidates were already lining up to apportion blame for a “devastating” result. “I take responsibility for the loss,” Sunak said as he conceded defeat at 4.40am in his Yorkshire constituency.
In an oblique swipe at Sunak, who has sometimes been criticised as a bland technocrat, Rees-Mogg said: “We are increasingly a presidential system and the charismatic individual leader is very important . . . Nigel seems to have shown that in this election.” Reform UK pushed the Conservatives into third place in many seats, something Tory officials parsed as an ominous harbinger for their party’s future in the north of England and Midlands in coming years.