The UK’s former Brexit negotiator Lord David Frost has predicted that his party is “hurtling towards a terrible defeat” at the next general election.
Frost, who served in the cabinet under Boris Johnson, told LBC on Wednesday evening that “you only have to look at the polls”.
The former cabinet minister, who is thought to be a member of an anti-Sunak plot of Conservatives, was named as a leading force behind a YouGov survey that showed his party is heading for a significant defeat at the next election.
The survey, released in late January, revealed a 27-point lead for Labour, and predicted that the Conservatives could retain as few as 169 seats at the coming general election.
At the time, Frost refused to reveal the names of the poll’s secret donors.
Days after the poll was published, former cabinet minister Sir Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak’s resignation as prime minister.
Clarke told BBC News at the time: “No one likes that guy that’s shouting ‘iceberg’ but I suspect that people will be even less happy if we hit the iceberg.
“And we are on course to do that. That is the point that I need to land with colleagues respectfully and calmly.
“We are not at the moment responding to the situation with the seriousness that it warrants.”
On Wednesday this week, Clarke issued a one-word post on X/Twitter which merely read “Iceberg”.
Iceberg.
— Simon Clarke MP (@SimonClarkeMP) March 13, 2024
Speaking to LBC on Wednesday, Lord Frost appeared to echo Clarke’s concerns, saying: “You only have to look at the polls, obviously we’re hurtling to defeat, we’re hurtling towards a terrible defeat.”
“Every poll one looks at says the same thing, we’re going to lose and we’re going to lose bad, and the only debate is how bad.
“So, we have to do something to change the story and bring our voters back and at the moment, we’re not doing that.”
However, Lord Frost also told LBC that he still believes the PM can transform the Conservative Party “into the kind of Conservative Party that I would like to see”.
“I believe he stands for a lot of those things himself, but he has the problem that the party is a very broad church”, he claimed.
He argued that the prime minister has tilted “to the left of the party”, and suggested that he should “make sure we’re offering things that deal with the real problems of the country and try and bring back some of those who represent that view within the party.”
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