Kemi Badenoch brands Robert Jenrick supporters seeking to oust her 'sore losers'

Mrs Badenoch defeated Mr Jenrick in last year's leadership contest, which the latter claimed Mr Jenrick found "distressing".

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She said it was "wishful thinking" that Mr Jenrick could replace her as Tory leader.

Mrs Badenoch told The Sunday Times: "There will always be people who are sore losers, our candidate didn't win and so on, and sour grapes. When I hear those things, I can tell those people are not focused on the country at all.

"Many of those people having those conversations think this is a game. But the lives of people in this country aren't a game.

"I think even Rob himself finds it distressing, but it's just something that we deal with."

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The Tory leader said that some of the criticism aimed at her was "about my race and my ethnicity", with individuals claiming she was a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hire.

Mrs Badenoch said: "There's a certain cadre of people who clearly can't cope with the fact that I won this and I'm doing it. The level of personal attacks from anonymous people, it's hysterical.

"Not even just from MPs. I actually don't think there are that many MPs. I think it's two to three people out of 120. That's nothing. But online as well.

"People used to talk about Trump derangement syndrome. I think there's a Kemi derangement syndrome – 'How could she possibly have done this? It must have been DEI'."

The Tory leader has so far been unable to recover Tory failings, with the party falling behind Labour and Reform UK in the opinion polls.

Mrs Badenoch explained that people are "angry because of things that Labour is doing" and "they are angry because they think that we left the country in a bad state".

She stated her task was tougher than that faced by William Hague after the 1997 Labour landslide: "We've got fewer MPs, and we've got this new problem with Reform taking a lot of our votes."

The Tory leader also took aim at Nigel Farage, describing him as a "bulls*** artist".

She said that Reform UK was "just about pulling this down and destroying things", as she slammed her rival on the right.

According to YouGov, 28 per cent of the public would vote for Reform UK at the next general election.

This compares to Labour at 21 per cent and the Tories only on 18 per cent, some 10 per cent behind Farage's party.

The Tories popularity has steadily fallen as the year has gone on, with the party polling at 22 per cent of the voter share in January, four per cent up to August.