The Conservative party has to see off the threat from Reform UK if it wants to win power at the next general election, Suella Braverman has said.
But she said that she would not defect to Reform UK – unless pushed out by her party – and confessed she had given up all ambitions to lead the Conservatives.
Braverman also warned that the Labour government will undo Brexit, saying: “I do feel very, very, heartbroken by that prospect.”
In a wide ranging interview with GB News’ Chopper’s Political Podcast, Braverman said that she had given up all ambition about leading the Tory party. She said: “That will be it for me.”
She added: “I very much hope the leader we choose stays in post for a very long time. We do tend to chop and change and I think we’ve done that with too much frequency in recent years, which is one of the reasons the electorate got fed up with us.”
She also said that contrary to speculation, she will not be joining Reform UK. “I’m not going to defect to Reform. And I hope I’m not driven out to Reform by my colleagues.”
Braverman pointed to former Tory Lee Anderson who she said “should be sitting as a Conservative Member of Parliament.
“We should have more Conservative Members of Parliament because Reform should not have been the force that it was. And many hundreds, several, many of our MPs lost because of Reform.
“So we talk about a broad church. We should not be hounding out Conservatives, right wingers, Eurosceptics, people who want to stand up for our flag and our faith.
“I look at Lee Anderson. Lee Anderson is a good friend of mine, and it’s a tragedy that we lost him to Reform. He’s someone who speaks with an authentic voice that resonates with a lot of people in Britain.”
Braverman said that party had to take on the challenge of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party: “There is not enough room in British politics for two conservative parties, Reform and the Conservatives cannot coexist in the way that they are.
“We will have no chance of winning the next general election as long as Reform is a viable alternative.
“We’ve got to deal with this existential threat posed by Reform, and whoever it is who becomes the next leader has to be able to bring those four million voters back, back to the Conservative Party. They’re only going to do that with credibility and by providing an inspiring vision.”
The former Home Secretary said that the party’s policies had drifted “over the past six and seven months, I’ve been really concerned as the party’s kind of shifted to the left. I’ve just found myself more odds with the party”.
Braverman pointed to former Tory Lee Anderson who she said “should be sitting as a Conservative Member of Parliament
GB News
Her role had been to speak out, she said: “I see this role not just as a means to rise up the greasy pole. I do see it as a way to actually try and speak the truth on behalf of the British people, to the British people, for the British people.
“And sometimes those truths are really difficult to hear in the Westminster bubble, amongst the kind of elites amongst some of my colleagues.”
The Tories needed a new “guiding philosophy” to rebuild the coalition of voters who deserted them at the last election.
She said: “We need actually a doctrine. We need a guiding philosophy which we’ve lost over recent years.
“So on immigration, restoring our track record as a low tax party, restoring our voice as being the party of the family.
“We really lost that. We should be the party that stands first and foremost for the strength and the sovereignty.”
This included a designing a tax system which “encourages, incentivises and championed marriage”, she said, as well as boosting home ownership levels.
Braverman told the podcast she had received “thousands” of letters and emails from Tory members urging her to put her name forward and was “sorry” she had to disappoint them.
Braverman said she took the decision after having “read the runes in Parliament. I didn’t have the support to succeed” but “it was the right thing for me to bow out, hopefully gracefully, at this stage.”
Braverman spoke on Chopper’s Political Podcast
GB News
Braverman said that since the election the make up of the Parliamentary party had changed and now was much more centrist, and focused on the south of England.
“We’re a very different party to the one we were in 2019 following that general election victory,” she said.
“We don’t have much northern support. We’re much more concentrated in the South, in the Home Counties, in the blue wall as we’ve described it in the past.
“All of the [leadership] candidates represent southern seats, actually, we’ve got Robert Jenrick, he’s a Midlands, but we haven’t got anybody from the North.”
A big worry was Brexit. Braverman said the Labour Government’s decision to wind up the European Scrutiny committee was “misguided”.
She said: “Brexit is going to be undone by the Labour Party. Mark my words. Whether it’s explicitly or implicitly, they will start undoing the hard work of many decades.”
Braverman had some kind words for former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who has been criticised for calling the election six months before he had to.
“Rishi Sunak had a really difficult inheritance. MPs united to install Rishi Sunak. So, you know, we have to take responsibility,” she said.
“I take responsibility. Rishi Sunak, his agenda was delivered pretty much without hiccup. Everything that Rishi Sunak wanted, he got. So whether it was his smoking ban, whether it was the Windsor Framework.”
