Suella Braverman’s Tory leadership campaign dealt blow as key ally abandons her
Suella Braverman’s prospective Conservative leadership campaign has been dealt a blow after a key ally abandoned her.
The former home secretary has seen the campaign organiser from her Autumn 2022 leadership bid switch allegiance to Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who is also widely expected to throw his hat into the ring to replace Rishi Sunak.
Danny Kruger, co-chair of the New Conservatives, a right-wing grouping of MPs, is understood to be now backing Mr Jenrick, who quit his Cabinet post over the refusal by Rishi Sunak to take a tougher approach to immigration.
Both Mrs Braverman and Mr Jenrick pushed Mr Sunak to block any appeals against Rwanda deportation on human rights grounds, have called for the UK to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and proposed a cap on net migration, which was finally accepted for the Tories’ election manifesto.
However, Mrs Braverman has faced criticism from some MPs for her attacks on the campaign’s blunders before the polls closed and is the only prospective candidate to have suggested an accommodation with Reform UK leader Nigel Farage.
“These interventions have made her so unpopular that it’s not going to work. There’s a lot of affection for Suella but some of the things she has done showed a lack of judgement. It’s a pity,” said a senior Tory.
“Private polling is clear. It basically says that party members want the policies of Nigel Farage and the presentation of [Lord] David Cameron.”
Mrs Braverman and Mr Jenrick as well as former health secretary Victoria Atkins all took to the airwaves on Sunday to present their assessment of the Tory defeat – although all refused to say whether they would be standing.
Kemi Badenoch, the former business and trade secretary, is seen as a frontrunner with Priti Patel, another former home secretary, and Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, also said to be considering pitching for the leadership.
On Sunday, speaking to GB News’s Camilla Tominey, Mrs Braverman said that parts of the Tory party still wanted “more of the same”, but she warned: “We’ve all got to be searingly honest, it’s going to be uncomfortable for some people, or we don’t have any hope of fixing it.”
She said she was having “lots of conversations with colleagues” surrounding a potential leadership bid. “I’m very flattered and very encouraged by what people are saying to me. But this is a really difficult time for our party, there are lots of things to think about,” she added. “We need to agree on the diagnosis of the problem before we reach a resolution on the prescription.”
Mr Jenrick said that migration was “at the heart” of the loss of trust in the Conservatives, citing the number of votes the party had lost to Reform UK.
Echoing the words of Ms Braverman, he said: “I’ve been a member of this party since 1997 when I was 16 years of age. I’ve been with it through thick and thin. I want to ensure that it has the right diagnosis of what’s gone wrong, and that diagnosis is not about personalities. It’s about principles and ideas.”
One Tory said one of the two should stand aside as it would be a mistake for both to challenge for the leadership. “Robert has appeal to the right because of his stance on migration but has an urbanity that also appeals to the centre of the party,” they said.
Ms Atkins, who is from the One Nation centre-left grouping in the party, appeared to pitch herself as a unity candidate. She said that the Tories must talk as a “unified party” and insisted that the public was still “instinctively Conservative”, wanting lower taxes and to “thrive in their personal lives and their livelihoods”.
Supporters of Ms Patel also portrayed her as a unity candidate, in being from the Right of the party but having drawn support from those from the centre and left in the form David Gauke and George Osborne.
