Badenoch plotted to oust Sunak before election defeat, new book claims
A new book by Sir Anthony Seldon claims Kemi Badenoch plotted to remove Rishi Sunak as prime minister before Labour's landslide victory, citing personal animosity.
A new book by the political historian Sir Anthony Seldon claims that Kemi Badenoch plotted to remove Rishi Sunak as prime minister before Labour’s landslide election victory. According to the account, the Conservative Party leader disliked what she saw as Sunak’s rudeness and wanted to bring him down while he was still in office.
The claim, reported as an exclusive from the forthcoming book, describes a deliberate effort by Badenoch to «take out» Sunak in the months before the general election. The book portrays the internal Conservative tensions as severe enough that senior figures were actively considering replacing their own prime minister during a period of deep unpopularity for the party.
Badenoch, who became Conservative leader after the election defeat, has not publicly responded to the specific allegations. The book adds to a growing body of literature examining the final months of the Sunak government, which ended with the party’s heaviest electoral loss in decades. Labour secured a substantial majority, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.
Sir Anthony Seldon is a well-known biographer of British prime ministers and has written extensively on the inner workings of Downing Street. His previous works have drawn on interviews with senior officials and politicians, and this latest project appears to follow the same pattern, offering an insider account of the Conservative Party’s internal conflicts.
The alleged plot against Sunak would have taken place against a backdrop of sustained poor polling for the Conservatives, with Labour led by Sir Keir Starmer consistently ahead throughout the campaign period. Internal party divisions over policy and strategy were widely reported at the time, but the claim of an active effort to depose the sitting prime minister adds a new dimension to that narrative.
The book’s publication is expected to reignite debate about the Conservative Party’s conduct in the run-up to the election and the decisions that contributed to its defeat. It also raises questions about Badenoch’s leadership style and her relationship with her predecessor, which could have implications for her current position as party leader.
Neither Badenoch nor Sunak has issued a detailed statement about the book’s claims. The Conservative Party has not commented on the excerpts published so far. The book is scheduled for release in the coming weeks, and further revelations are anticipated as extracts are serialised in the press.
The episode underscores the degree of instability within the Conservative Party during its final months in government, a factor that political analysts have cited as contributing to the scale of its defeat. The party is now in opposition, and its leadership faces the task of rebuilding after one of the most significant electoral setbacks in its history.
