Suella Braverman says 'idiotic strategy' led Conservatives to worst-ever election defeat
Suella Braverman says 'idiotic strategy' led Conservatives to worst-ever election defeat
The former home secretary makes a veiled leadership pitch in an article for The Sunday Telegraph, in which she blames high taxes and immigration for the historically bad 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 pursuing an "idiotic strategy of intermittently and inconsistently making 'Tory Right' noises which disintegrated when set against our liberal Conservative record".
"I say again, 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," she added.
The former home secretary - who retained her seat of Fareham and Waterlooville but with a much-reduced majority - blamed "high taxes" and "high immigration" as well as "insane political correctness" she believed the party had embraced for the scale of the defeat.
"We weren't sufficiently fascist"
62As she also favours bringing Farage into the Tory party...
28And the more fascist they become, the more unelectable. I think they kind of have to finish being consumed by Farage and lose a few times to learn it.
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Good to see she has learnt all the wrong lessons from that and her pitch for leadership is "we need to be more awful".
52Yes, pretty amusing form of copium from Braverman.
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Her idiotic strategy?
15She's been told what the problem is and she is still advocating to continue the non-working strategy, while saying that the actual problem is that the thing that has won them many many elections in the past, is in fact the wrong way to go.
Got to hand it to her, she doesn't like reality, critical thinking or common sense get in the way of her desires.
14The fault lines are appearing in the Tories over what the new incarnation of the party is going to be. Broadly it seems like it's going to be Kemi Badenoch with a more traditional, philosophically grounded version of the party (Roger Scruton style), on one side. Then on the other we've got Suella Braverman who is wanting to reclaim the Reform vote by becoming a more European style populist party. Steve Baker, self described "brexit hard man" (lol) was making noises about running but realistically it will be one of the other two that will have the base within the party to make a proper run for leader of the opposition.
I suspect there could have been a 3rd option for the one nation conservatives if Penny Mordaunt had kept her seat but unfortunately the more centrist tories seemed to lose more seats than the right wing hardcore.
4Then on the other we’ve got Suella Braverman who is wanting to reclaim the Reform vote by becoming a more European style populist party.
She's said how she'd like to welcome Farage into the Tory Party. I'm not sure that is still viable after some of his statements during the election but if she is intent in doubling down in the nasty party angle it might. So if she wins, and the membership tends to skew towards the awful.end of the spectrum, I wouldn't be surprised at merger negotiations which I bet Farage would jump at as it gives him his road to greater power.
8Yeah, he hasn't been very good at hiding the fact that he basically wishes he was a Tory. A lot of his speeches regarding the subject sound like a jilted lover emphasising how "over it" they are.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Suella Braverman has issued a scathing verdict as to why the Conservatives lost the election, blaming Rishi Sunak for pursuing an "idiotic strategy" that treated voters like "mugs".
In an intervention that will be seen as her teeing up a potential leadership bid, the former home secretary said her party "failed in office and deserved this result".
Ms Braverman's article comes after she ducked questions as to whether she would launch her bid to be the next Conservative leader after Mr Sunak confirmed he would step down following the result.
In a hint that she too will run for leader, Ms Braverman said the Conservatives needed to "overhaul our party organisation so that MPs listen to members".
Speaking on the steps of Downing Street after losing the election, Mr Sunak apologised for the result and said he would not leave his role immediately but would do so once a Tory leadership race begins.
In an indication of the platform she will run on if she succeeds Mr Sunak as Conservative Party leader, Ms Braverman said the Tories must leave the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and scrap the Human Rights Act to facilitate a crackdown on migration as well as "fix Labour's Equality Act".
The original article contains 585 words, the summary contains 205 words. Saved 65%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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