Newark and Bingham MP Robert Jenrick ditches support for Boris Johnson and says nation would be better served under new leadership

Newark and Bingham MP Robert Jenrick has said today that he believes the nation would be better served under new leadership.

It comes after Rishi Sunak quit as chancellor and Sajid Javid resigned as health secretary yesterday as Boris Johnson’s leadership faced a fresh crisis.

A number of other of the Prime Minister's appointments followed them.

While the Prime Minister continues to tough it out through PMQs today, Mr Jenrick, who served in Boris Johnson's cabinet as communities secretary and is known friend of Rishi Sunak, said: "I have come to the conclusion that the country would be best served by new leadership.

"This is not a decision that I have arrived at lightly."

Mr Jenrick, who was among the very first Conservative MPs to back Boris for the top job, went on: "I served the Prime Minister, like his two predecessors, loyally and with complete commitment and there are a number of achievements of this government to which I am proud to have contributed.

"I have always wanted the Prime Minister to succeed and I gave him every opportunity to do so.

"However, it has become painfully clear that we are failing to provide the coherence, grip and direction that the country needs and deserves in these challenging times.

"I have found it difficult to support the ever rising tax burden and the government’s failure to deliver essential reforms to our economy and public services, not least the abdication of responsibility to tackle the housing crisis for the benefit of future generations.

"More fundamentally there has been a significant and I fear irretrievable loss of trust with the public, confirmed by the mishandling of serious allegations in recent days.

"If we continue along our present path we risk doing lasting damage to the reputation of the Conservative Party for competence and good government and, more importantly, to the standing of politics generally.

"I can no longer, in all good conscience, support this.

"I believe this is a view broadly shared by my constituents and I would be doing them a disservice as their Member of Parliament if I didn’t make my view known at this moment.

"I have written to Sir Graham Brady [chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers] to express this decision."

Sir Graham and the 1922 Committee are crucial to Mr Johnson staying at Number 10.

Sherwood MP Mark Spencer, Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council, and a former Chief Whip, has been contacted but has yet to reveal his stance or divulge whether he wants Mr Johnson to continue.

However, Mr Spencer is on the front bench alongside Mr Johnson at PMQs today.

Another former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell MP, who lives near Bingham, told Newsnight Boris Johnson's time in Downing Street was over and said he had to think very carefully about what was in the best interests of the country and the Conservative Party.

He likened Boris Johnson's political survival to the protracted assassination of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin in 1916.

"It is a bit like the death of Rasputin. He has been poisoned, stabbed, he has been shot, his body has been dumped in a freezing river and still he lives," Mr Mitchell said.

On resigning, Mr Sunak said: “The public rightly expect government to be conducted properly, competently and seriously.

“I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”

In an incendiary letter, Mr Javid said the British people “expect integrity from their government” but voters now believed Mr Johnson’s administration was neither competent nor “acting in the national interest”.

The resignations came as Mr Johnson was forced into a humiliating apology over his handling of the Chris Pincher row after it emerged he had forgotten about being told of previous allegations of “inappropriate” conduct.

Mr Pincher quit as deputy chief whip last week following claims that he groped two men at a private members’ club, but Mr Johnson was told about allegations against him as far back as 2019.

The Prime Minister acknowledged he should have sacked Mr Pincher when he was told about the claims against him when he was a Foreign Office minister in 2019, but instead Mr Johnson went on to appoint him to other government roles.

Asked if that was an error, Mr Johnson said: “I think it was a mistake and I apologise for it. In hindsight it was the wrong thing to do.

“I apologise to everybody who has been badly affected by it. I want to make absolutely clear that there’s no place in this Government for anybody who is predatory or who abuses their position of power.”