The head of Popular Conservativism - a new movement launched by Liz Truss to push Rishi Sunak's Government in a right-wing direction has backed - Rishi Sunak to take the Tories into the next election.
'PopCon' was launched in March by Truss and other well-known figures on the right of the party, former business secretary Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg. Reform UK honorary president Nigel Farage was in the audience.
The group wants to give people freedom over their lives and take back control from unaccountable bureaucracies and quangos.
Since then the movement has attracted 10,000 supporters - many of whom are Conservative party members - and is now developing a right-wing policy platform to try to influence the Tory election manifesto.
In an interview with Chopper's Political Podcast, out on Friday, Mark Littlewood, PopCon's chief executive, said that Sunak will lead the party into the next election - and he will back the Prime Minister.
He said: "There's been all of these rumours about some cohort that was trying to get rid of Rishi Sunak meeting in some office, and I genuinely don't have a candidate."
Littlewood said that Sunak was now safe to lead the party into the election.
"I think it was ludicrous to suggest we should remove the Prime Minister. I genuinely, genuinely did," he said.
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"I could not believe that would be in the best party's interest. And I wish him well at the election. Right? I mean, he might be 25 per cent behind, but he'll definitely be getting my vote.
"And I think that manoeuvring against him was mad. So I don't have a candidate in mind. We can talk about a range of personalities.
"But I want a candidate who will pick up the philosophy and platform of what PopCon are saying."
Littlewood said PopCon would now be trying to meet senior Tory figures to try to ensure that some of its policy platform forms part of the Conservative election manifesto.
He said: "Rather than working with the grain of a lot of the institutions in the UK, we've got to tear up a lot of institutions in the UK.
"The typical conservative mindset is always, well, if it's here and it exists, and that's probably the wisdom of the ages ... we think in Popcon that the institutional infrastructure is enormously geared against Conservative ends."
Watch the interview at GBNews.com or on YouTube.
