Senior Tories have lashed out at a “reckless and selfish” former minister after he called on Rishi Sunak to step down to avoid being “massacred” at the election.

Former ministers urged colleagues to put their duty to the country ahead of “tribalism” following a challenge to the prime minister launched by Sir Simon Clarke.

While Sir Simon appears to be a lone voice at the moment, the infighting has been likened to an episode of BBC’s hit psychological reality show The Traitors – in which traitors must be rooted out and “banished” by faithfuls.

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Writing in The Telegraph, the former levelling up secretary insisted “extinction is a very real possibility” for the party if Mr Sunak leads it into the election this year.

However former defence minister Tobias Ellwood told Sky News: “It’s not only dangerous, reckless, selfish, it’s also defeatist because what the electorate want to see, they want to see leadership, they want to see a good manifesto within it, but they also want to see unity.

“That is what will win a general election. And to do this months away from the next general election is absolutely shocking.”

Asked how representative Sir Simon’s views are of the wider party, Mr Ellwood said there will “always being a caucus” of those who don’t support the current leadership, claiming there are “probably” Labour MPs who don’t back Sir Keir Starmer.

But he said they are “keeping quiet”, adding: “Simon Clarke and his colleagues should keep quiet to let us do our best and try and win the next general election. Don’t be a roadblock to prevent that happening.”

Mr Ellwood was the latest senior figure to join the pile on, with many Conservatives coming out last night and this morning to criticise their colleague.

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

Former home secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “Engaging in facile and divisive self indulgence only serves our opponents, it’s time to unite and get on with the job.”

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Former prime minister Liz Truss, who gave Sir Simon a cabinet position after he backed her leadership bid, also does not back his intervention, it is understood.

However a Tory source told our political editor Beth Rigby that Sir Simon is only saying “what everyone knows but won’t say out loud” and “scores of MPs privately agree”.

And a senior MP on the right of the party has also said that two by-elections next month could be a “watershed moment”, adding: “If we get slaughtered, the herd might well panic.”

Postal minister Kevin Hollingrake denied there was a “plot” to oust Mr Sunak, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme the party is united “in many aspects”.

Sir Simon’s intervention comes amid a number of struggles for the prime minister, including falling approval ratings and unhappiness within his party over the stalled Rwanda deportation plan for asylum seekers.

Last week he was one of 11 Conservative MPs to vote against Mr Sunak’s bill to revive the scheme. Dame Andrea Jenkyns, one of the other rebels, has previously called for the prime minister to go and told Sky News on Monday she stood by that view.

A Tory rebel source told Sky News that “several” letters of no confidence in Mr Sunak had now been submitted. A minimum of 53 would need to be sent in to trigger a leadership contest.

Labour’s Lucy Powell said the infighting “is like an episode of The Traitors”, adding: “I can’t keep up with who’s a ‘traitor’ and who’s a ‘faithful’ and who is going to be ‘banished’ and who isn’t.”

She told Sky News: “It’s just actually not that interesting anymore. We want to see a change of government, but we want to see it through a general election.”

Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper branded the Tory infighting “utterly ludicrous” and said voters were “sick and tired of this never-ending Conservative Party soap opera”.