Nadine Dorries uses new book to continue feud with Kemi Badenoch over Boris Johnson’s downfall

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Nadine Dorries has used her latest book to continue her feud with Kemi Badenoch, with the former culture secretary claiming the newly appointed leader is both a bully and unfit to be prime minister.

Written as this summer’s Conservative leadership race unfolded, Ms Dorries quoted a number of unnamed party insiders attacking Ms Badenoch’s credentials.

However, a source close to the now Tory leader refused Fallwhich will be published on Thursday, as fiction.

Ms Dorries resigned as an MP in August 2023 after launching a scathing attack on then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

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She has repeatedly locked horns with Ms Badenoch, accusing her of plotting against Boris Johnson and saying she should be “automatically disqualified” from the leadership race as a result.

Ms Dorries, who is a close ally of the former prime minister, recounts an instance in which the now Tory leader urged colleagues to leave the former prime minister’s cabinet hours before he was forced to resign.

In WhatsApp messages that were later leaked, Badenoch threatened to remove colleagues from the group if they did not leave their posts.

Dorries – who has repeatedly defended Mr. Johnson’s record in government – ​​wrote of the incident: “The stupidity of her actions that evening I think has left a lingering doubt about her fitness to ever be a leader among MPs.”

“No one likes a bully,” she added.

Ms Dorries also blamed Ms Badenoch for the Tory party’s decline. Writing as the Conservative leadership race got under way, Ms Dorries said: “As predicted, Kemi Badenoch is in the running.

“She and Rishi should have been the saviors of the Conservative Party. They should have led us up to the sunny highlands; instead we had steadily declined and were at rock bottom, the party was on the verge of being wiped out.

“I wonder how long the cabal that runs the party can keep getting it wrong. It feels like a question of whether the party will get rid of them or they will free us all from the party.”

Ms Dorries’ has used both books she has written since leaving office, the first of which is about the “political assassination of Boris Johnson”, to peddle elaborate theories about the Conservative Party, including the claim that a shadowy cabal has withdrawn. strings for years.

Key members of the alleged group include former minister Michael Gove, former adviser to Johnson Dominic Cummings and Dougie Smith, who she claims has served at the heart of the government for years.

She claims that Ms. Badenoch was the candidate that Mr. Gove and his allies had chosen to take over from Mr. Sunak as leader of the party. It’s a claim Ms Badenoch dismissed as “very strange” in an interview The independent last month before the leadership vote.

But the former culture secretary cites a number of party insiders rejecting Ms Badenoch’s bid to lead the party, with one former minister saying: “I could live with any of them, apart from Kemi, who simply doesn’t have the temperament to be a party leader , let alone a potential Prime Minister.”

Another source, whom Ms Dorries calls ‘Moneypenney’, added: “I’m certainly not alone in thinking that Kemi is narcissistically important to herself, which is why she struggles to keep her temper in check with them, who do not agree with her.

“Kemi’s temper, her aloofness and rudeness, but mostly her well-known aversion to hard work, will eventually blow her up.”

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A third source, also unnamed, claims Ms Badenoch is the Conservative Party’s “equivalent to Jeremy Corbyn” and says they would cancel their party membership if she were to win the leadership race.

“Those of us who have worked with her know how unstable she is, how bad-tempered. She has been bloody rude to newspaper editors,” they continued. “I have been told that she spends her days reading every word that has been written about her”.

Ms Dorries herself adds: “If Kemi becomes leader, the next five years will be a long, slow death.

“From newspaper editors to party donors, stories of the breathtakingly rude and arrogant way she addressed people were becoming Westminster folklore. Humility was not high on Kemi’s list of interpersonal skills,” she wrote.

This was told by a source close to the Tory leader The independent: “Nadine is a fantastic fiction writer… and never misses a wagon to whip her book on.”