MPs have to get behind the Prime Minister, says Sir Iain Duncan Smith

Former Tory Party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith has urged MPs to get behind the Prime Minister and show the public that they are united.

He told Camilla Tominey on GB News: “I just look at this whole process and think to myself, we've got to stop turning inwards on ourselves and start trying to get behind the idea that we've got an election to fight and the public wants to know that we're united and we're very clear.

“There are points…about how to get the Labour Party into an argument that you can then kill them over, in terms of the way that you take the debate. It’s really critical and dynamic politics demands it.

“What dynamic politics does not demand is literally the third leader in a short space of time that replaced Boris Johnson.

“I was opposed to when we replaced Boris Johnson because he’s a man with many faults and had done all sorts of stuff, but nobody had faced the crisis he had faced and he still at that stage would have been an asset at the end of that in communication.”

On talk of a leadership challenge, he said: “Rishi is here, we have to get behind him. I think generally I'd take a lot of persuading. It's not a short term process, you'd have to have a vote of confidence, then on the back of the vote of confidence you’d have to have a leadership election.

“The idea that you could get one person in the short term, I doubt it, that will take you weeks.”

Sir Iain added: “The answer is we either decide that we want to get the election won or we just want to give up on it.

“The only way you can do politics is to aim to win. Aim to resist, aim to stop…doesn't work. You've got to try and win that election.

“Sometimes I have to say to my colleagues, you spend more time discussing how to avoid defeat than you do actually talking about winning.

“When you're that negative, the public can see it, they think, ‘well, what's the point of these people? All they want to do is surrender’.

“I say to my colleagues, get on the front foot, get out into your constituencies and start really blasting this nonsense that Labour believes in, net zero, the trans thing with safe spaces for women, all these things are really important.”

Asked if he would like to see a return of Boris Johnson, he said: “I would love to see Boris come back and campaigning because he’s a very good campaigner, not to undermine any leadership.”

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