Suella Braverman’s “divisive rightwing politics” make her unsuitable to lead the Conservative party, Ben Houchen, the Tory Tees Valley mayor, has said, amid a backlash after the former home secretary said her party had been too liberal. A series of other Conservative figures attacked Braverman after she used a speech in the US to describe the Progress Pride flag as a “monstrous thing”, saying she was angered when it was flown over the Home Office against her will. “Our problem is us,” she told the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC. “Our problem is that the liberal Conservatives who trashed the Tory party think it was everyone’s fault but their own. My party governed as liberals and we were defeated as liberals. But seemingly, as ever, it is Conservatives who are to blame.” She added: “What the Progress flag says to me is one monstrous thing: that I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals and from our schools.”
Her comments appear to be an allusion to the prescribing of puberty blockers or to other medical procedures undergone by some people as they transition, though most are not available for children. Such comments and Braverman’s wider pitch to the party if, as expected, she joins the contest to succeed Rishi Sunak, have angered some Conservatives, and she has lost the support of many MPs from the Tory right she might have expected to back her. Houchen told Times Radio: “I don’t think it’s a credible offering and the MPs and the members that I speak to are not interested in the divisive rightwing politics of Suella Braverman. “If the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.” Braverman’s speech on Monday night was condemned by Iain Dale, a radio presenter and former Conservative candidate. He said: “What a disgusting speech. And she seriously thinks she has a chance of leading the Conservative party. “Not while I have a breath left in my body. Moderate Conservatives need to stand up and be counted. This will not stand.” Another Conservative candidate, Casey Byrne, said he had written to Sunak asking him to expel Braverman from the party. “Whilst my voice does not matter alone, I urge all decent people to speak up too. This cannot be allowed to go without consequences,” he wrote on X.
Braverman is expected to run for the Conservative leadership, though she is believed to be losing support to Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister who will run on a hardline anti-migration platform. Danny Kruger, an influential backbencher on the Tory right, has already shifted his support from Braverman to Jenrick. It is understood that another senior MP from this wing of the party, John Hayes, has done the same. Speaking on Tuesday from Washington to a post-election event in the UK held by the Popular Conservatism group, Braverman criticised what she called the “lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state”. Braverman said Reform UK posed “an existential threat” to the Conservatives, saying: “There is space in British politics for only one Conservative party.” She said Reform could be combated only if the Tories pledged policies such as withdrawal from the European convention on human rights and repealing the Equality Act, which she said would allow a government to properly tackle immigration, among other issues. Other speakers at the event also urged the Conservatives to not respond to defeat by moving to the centre. David Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, said Sunak’s government had “followed the collectivist zeitgeist leftwards” and presented policies that were “a flabby mishmash of sub-socialist ideas”. Another speaker, Jacob Rees-Mogg, who lost his seat last week, told reporters as he left the event that the party should not rush into a leadership decision. “There’s plenty of time,” he said. “There’s not going to be an election until May 2028 if things are going well [for Labour] and June 2029 if they’re not. So you don’t need to rush, or panic.” The first stage of the contest took place on Tuesday evening when the veteran backbencher Bob Blackman was elected as chair of the 1922 Committee, which represents Tory MPs and organises leadership races. Blackman received 61 MPs’ votes and Geoffrey Clifton-Brown received 37, amid some reported annoyance that people had been turned away after being told the incorrect voting time.