Johnson joins election campaign by backing Tory MP who called for Sunak to quit

Boris Johnson has finally joined the election campaign trail – by publicly backing an MP who has called for Rishi Sunak to quit.

The former prime minister has produced a video in support of Sir Simon Clarke, the former levelling up secretary, who in January called for Mr Sunak to resign and warned that the party faced an electoral “massacre” if he remained in charge.

Sir Simon, who served as a minister under both Mr Johnson and Liz Truss, is seeking re-election as MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.

In a video tweeted by Sir Simon, Mr Johnson makes no mention of Mr Sunak but urges voters in the constituency to back a candidate who played a “crucial part” in the “whole levelling up agenda”, a key plank of his 2019 election campaign.

He said that Sir Simon’s re-election would stop Ben Houchen, the recently re-elected mayor for Tees Valley, being surrounded by Labour MPs.

Mr Johnson also praised Sir Simon for “being heroic” in getting himself and the Tories elected in 2019 with one of the biggest majorities “that our party has had for a very long time and helping to get Brexit done and prevent Jeremy Corbyn, Keir Starmer and every else from unravelling it”.

Mr Sunak and Mr Johnson are said to have talked before the campaign but the former prime minister has been given no formal role in the campaign. Instead he is said to have opted for “interventions” to support individual candidates.

His first choice will raise eyebrows in Conservative central office given Sir Simon’s blistering critique of Mr Sunak in his call for the Prime Minister to resign.

In an article for The Telegraph earlier this year, he said that Mr Sunak has gone “from asset to anchor” and the party faced extinction under his leadership.

He warned that the country was “on the brink of being run by Keir Starmer’s Labour for a decade or more”, and if Nigel Farage “returns to the fray, as looks increasingly likely, extinction is a very real possibility for our party”.

Sir Simon explained that Mr Sunak was not “solely responsible for our present predicament” but his “uninspiring leadership is the main obstacle to our recovery”.

He wrote: “The unvarnished truth is that Rishi Sunak is leading the Conservatives into an election where we will be massacred.”

Sir Simon was one of 11 Conservative MPs to vote against Mr Sunak’s Rwanda bill as a rebellion fizzled out after attempts to toughen the scheme failed.

In the tweet on Friday, Sir Simon said: “I’m delighted to have the support of @‌BorisJohnson – the man who saw off Keir Starmer’s attempt to overturn Brexit and to install Jeremy Corbyn as our Prime Minister – twice.”

Sir Simon’s intervention in January provoked a furious backlash. Dame Priti Patel, the former home secretary, accused Sir Simon of “engaging in facile and divisive self indulgence”.

Sir David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said: “The party and the country are sick and tired of MPs putting their own leadership ambitions ahead of the UK’s best interests.”

Before quitting the Tories for Reform, Lee Anderson, who joined Sir Simon in rebelling over the Rwanda Bill, said that there was “no chance” of Mr Sunak being removed before the next election.