Suella Braverman has delivered a scathing verdict on why the Conservatives lost the election, blaming Rishi Sunak for pursuing a “idiotic strategy” that treated voters like “mugs”.
In an intervention that will be seen as a potential leadership bid, the former Interior Secretary said that her party “failed in office and deserved this result”.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, she attributed the party’s worst-ever defeat – in which it was reduced to just 121 seats – to the party that pursues an “idiotic strategy of making ‘Right Conservative’ noises intermittently and inconsistently that have disintegrated when compared to our liberal conservative record”.
“I repeat, regardless of what some of my colleagues think, voters are not scoundrels: they saw what we did in office and ignored what we insincerely said during the campaign,” he added.
The former Home Secretary – who retained her seat in Fareham and Waterlooville, but with a much-reduced majority – blamed “high taxes” and “high immigration”, as well as the “insane political correctness” she believed the party had adopted due to the scale of the defeat.
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In a nod to conservative commentators who attributed the result to those who were agitating for the movement to tilt further to the right, Ms. Braverman argued: “The problem wasn’t people like me and David Frost warning about the mistakes that were being made. committed, it was the mistakes!”
Braverman’s article comes after she sidestepped questions about whether she would launch her bid to be the next Conservative leader, after Sunak confirmed he would resign following the result.
Other Conservative MPs expected to launch leadership campaigns include former security minister Tom Tugendhat, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, former business secretary Kemi Badenoch and former home secretary Dame Priti Patel.
Hinting that she will also run for leadership, Braverman said the Conservatives needed to “restructure our party organization so that MPs listen to members”.
“We should not entertain any talk of removing the foundations of a leadership election,” she said.
Referring to the fact that Mr Sunak was effectively crowned conservative leader following the downfall of Liz Trussshe said: “They didn’t give us the leader who lost two-thirds of my colleagues in their seats. We MPs did that.”
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Speaking on the steps of Downing Street after losing the election, Sunak apologized for the result and said he would not leave his role immediately but would do so once the Conservative leadership race began.
“I would like to say, first of all, that I am sorry. I gave my all to this job,” he said.
“But you have sent a clear signal that the UK government must change.
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“And yours is the only judgment that matters.”
In an indication of the platform she will use if she succeeds Sunak as leader of the Conservative Party, Ms Braverman said the Conservatives must leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and scrapping the Human Rights Act to ease the crackdown on migration, as well as “fixing the Employment Equality Act”.
She added: “Nigel Farage is in the House of Commons now. He has no record in office to defend.
“He might just say the right things. But we have to do them. It’s past time we started.”
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
