A Conservative councillor has quit the party and criticised the government for making the Tories “unelectable”.

Geoff Rutland, who had served as a Tory councillor on Seaford Town Council, announced in an email to other councillors he could “not be associated” with the "inept and incompetent" government and will now serve as an independent.

Speaking to The Argus, Cllr Rutland said he had been a Conservative for his whole business life, as was his father, but he could no longer support the party due to its "incompetency" in office.

He said: “It’s been a combination of things, not least of which was the PPE scandal with multi-million pound contracts being awarded to complete idiots, stupid things like Rishi Sunak’s Christmas video, where he is bowling over Coca-Cola tins in Number 10, and the Home Secretary’s remarks that there were no refugees crossing the Channel over Christmas - the fact they didn’t come over was because the sea was too rough to put a boat on it.

“They are doing to the Conservative Party what Jeremy Corbyn did to the Labour Party - they’re making them completely unelectable.

“The principles of conservatism are excellent, but the current government is less than inspiring.”

The Argus: Cllr Geoff RutlandCllr Geoff Rutland

Cllr Rutland said that quitting the Conservative Party was not a decision he took lightly but said: “One thing I abhor is incompetence and I won’t have anything to do with incompetence.”

However, he did not rule out returning to the Tories under a new leader.

“I would never say never, but the problem is the question in politics is never which one is the right one, but which is the least worst,” he said.

“Quite frankly, I don’t think any of the current bunch are worth voting for, but we will end up with one of them - I don’t know which one.

“If they [the Conservatives] got their act together and went back to the traditional competencies of doing the job right, then maybe I would go back, but as it stands at the moment, I’m done with them.”

The news comes as the Conservatives end the year roughly 20 points behind Labour in the opinion polls, with political pundits anticipating that a general election may be called in May.