Sunak had ‘idiotic policies’ and Tories took voters for ‘mugs’, says Braverman

By Will Hazell

Suella Braverman has said that the Conservatives “deserved” their historic election defeat, in an intervention that will be seen as laying the groundwork for her leadership bid.

The former home secretary accuses Rishi Sunak of pursuing an “idiotic strategy” and suggests that some of her colleagues treated voters like “mugs”

It comes as Tom Tugendhat is preparing to launch his own leadership campaign, with allies saying he will be able to appeal to the full spectrum of ex-Tory supporters, from Reform UK voters to those who backed the Liberal Democrats.

Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Dame Priti Patel are also mulling leadership bids.

In her article, Mrs Braverman says that the Tories “failed in office and deserved this result”.

In scathing criticism of Mr Sunak, she questions whether he ever really wanted to deliver the Rwanda deportation scheme, which Labour has now scrapped.

“Rishi might not have meant Rwanda and did not do it, but I meant it and wanted it done,” she writes. “The promise he’d do it is why I’m the guilty woman who helped make him PM.”

Attacking parliamentary colleagues who backed Mr Sunak, she claims: “So many of the so few colleagues who survived letting Rishi be Rishi still don’t get it.”

“Many saw the result coming months ago and advised a way out. We were vilified as ‘divisive’ and ‘self-indulgent’. One colleague told me to ‘STFU’ [shut the f— up].”

She says the party’s vote collapsed because of an “idiotic strategy of intermittently and inconsistently making ‘Tory Right’ noises – which disintegrated when set against our liberal Conservative record”.

Criticising the approach to tax, immigration and trans issues under Mr Sunak, she says: “Whatever some of my colleagues think, the voters aren’t mugs: they saw what we did in office and ignored what we insincerely said while campaigning.

“High taxes, high immigration, and – and I can hardly bear to say this – children literally, physically, mutilated by insane political correctness on our watch.

“The problem wasn’t people like me and [Tory peer] David Frost warning about the mistakes being made, it was the mistakes!”

In words which will be read as a leadership pitch, she says the Conservatives need to “overhaul our party organisation so that MPs listen to members”, warning against any attempt to bypass the membership when choosing the next leader.

“They did not give us the leader who lost two-thirds of my colleagues their seats. We MPs did that,” she writes. “The feedback loop where a court of chums, and a claque of cheerleaders, tells you how brilliantly you’re doing needs to end.”

Outlining policies which the Tories need to “adopt in opposition and do in office”, she says that the UK has to “leave the European Convention on Human Rights, scrap the Human Rights Act and fix Labour’s Equality Act”.

“All the other things we ought to argue for – and which we failed to do in office for 14 years – require that legal bedrock.”

The article fires the starting pistol in a leadership race which is likely to highlight deep divisions in the Tory party after last week’s crushing election result.

Mr Tugendhat, the former security minister, is expected to run in the contest, with allies saying that to make a comeback the Conservatives will have to appeal to Lib Dem and Labour voters, as well as those who voted Reform.

With Penny Mordaunt no longer in the race after losing her seat, they believe he will get to the final two candidates and make the membership round. However, supporters of Mr Tugendhat are resisting the notion that he is the candidate of the Tory Left or the “moderates”.

On Monday, he will host MPs and journalists in Westminster for “belated birthday” drinks. Allies played down the idea that the event would be a soft launch for his campaign.

Other contenders are yet to show their hand, with an ally of the former business secretary Mrs Badenoch saying she was “reflecting on the result” and “speaking lots to colleagues who’ve won and lost”.

“She thinks the post-mortem shouldn’t be rushed, it needs proper consideration,” they added.

Mr Jenrick is also widely expected to make a bid. Allies of the former Cabinet minister argue that his decision to resign from Mr Sunak’s government over concerns about immigration policy have been vindicated.

Dame Priti is another possible contender, but the former chancellor Jeremy Hunt has ruled himself out of the race.

Source: The Telegraph