Green MP Caroline Lucas has called for new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to call a general election.

The MP for Brighton Pavilion said that Mr Sunak, who has replaced Liz Truss in Number 10 after she completed just 49 days in office, has no mandate to run the country, pointing out he was “resoundingly rejected” just weeks ago by Tory members in the Conservative leadership election in the summer.

Ms Lucas described the new Prime Minister as a “climate-wrecker, a human rights destroyer and a Brexit backer” and said: “If he wants to get one call right, he should call a general election immediately.”

She said: “It’s difficult to think of a Prime Minister with less of a mandate to govern than Rishi Sunak, our fifth in six years - a man who was resoundingly rejected less than two months ago by Tory members.

“He portrays himself as a ‘grown up’ and a ‘safe pair of hands’, yet his record reveals him to be anything but. In 2016, he argued that Brexit would be good for the economy - that was obviously wrong then and is even more painfully wrong now, with new trade barriers directly leading to higher food prices.

“As Chancellor, he had a reputation for blocking spending on the climate and nature crisis. His feeble attempt at a windfall tax allowed a giant loophole for continued climate-wrecking oil and gas investment, just when energy companies said they had more money than they knew what to do with.

“And let’s not forget that over the summer, he’s been prepared to say whatever it takes to clamber to the top job. He’s made farcical calls to ban solar farms, thrown his weight behind the grotesque Rwanda deportation policy and refused to uprate benefits in line with inflation.

“If he wants to get one call right, he should call a general election immediately.”

In her final speech as Prime Minister, Liz Truss stressed the need to be “bold” and insisted she believes that “brighter days lie ahead”.

She made no apologies for her disastrous mini-budget that triggered financial turmoil and led to the chaotic end to her premiership - the shortest in British history.