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Suella Braverman is facing backlash after launching an extraordinary attack on the LGBT community by describing government buildings flying the rainbow flag as “occupied territory”.
In a speech to demonstrate his leadership credentials to the Conservative right, the former Home Secretary said the Progress Party’s version of the Pride flag represented “a terrible political movement which I do not agree with”, and explained his attempts to remove it from his Marsham Street offices.
And in an incendiary speech, she said the flag symbolised support for “the mutilation of children in hospitals” and found it “physically repulsive”.
Former Labour culture secretary Ben Bradshaw said: “Suella Braverman has revealed the true colours of the Conservative right with her outrage at LGBT people. We exist. Let’s overcome it.”
And Ian Dale, a broadcaster who was due to stand as a Conservative candidate in the general election but then withdrew, said: “What a terrible speech. She really thinks she has a chance of leading the Conservative party. Not as long as I’m alive.”
And Labour MP Stella Creasy said: “Everyone, not just the Conservatives who won the election, must stand up to this evil that taints our politics, because equality benefits and liberates us all.”
Ms Braverman has also come under criticism from her own party, with former candidate and LBC presenter Ian Dale tweeting: “What a dreadful speech”.
“She really thinks she has a chance to lead the Conservative party. Not while I have breath left. Moderate Conservatives need to stand up and speak out. This cannot be tolerated.”
This came after Braverman said: “We Conservative ministers, who are nominally in charge of the system, have utterly failed. We have had the Progressive flag flying over our building as if it were occupied territory. We have not even been able to remove the flag of a terrible political movement that I do not agree with from the roof of the government department I am supposed to be responsible for.”
As the debate raged, historian and TV presenter David Starkey added fuel to the fire, telling a PopCon rally in central London that it was “insane” for the Conservative prime minister to list making same-sex marriage his greatest achievement.
At the same event, Ms Braverman likened Reform UK’s events to Hitler’s Nuremberg rallies and slammed a former Conservative MP who said the Conservative party was “weak” and “nervous” on immigration.
She called for adopting a policy to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and repeal human rights law, and also attacked what she called the “crazy woke virus”.
In a speech in Washington, she slammed the “entitled Conservative party” and pointed to what went wrong in the general election to plot her own leadership strategy.
The outspoken right-winger also said that despite the magnitude of their election defeat, the Conservatives are still unaware of the threat to their existence posed by Nigel Farage and the Reform Party.
In a scathing speech to the election crowd, she told them: “We have been massacred. We have been beaten. We have been mistreated. We have been kicked while we were on the ground. We have been headbutted by reality.”
She said her party “for better or worse is older than most countries, most constitutions, most ideas. But we’ve suffered terribly. We lost half our votes in the last election, we lost two-thirds of our parliamentary seats. It’s been brutal.”
But she said her party “certainly” had not learned the harsh lessons of its defeat.
She accused Mr Sunak of rolling out a policy programme “that a new Labour government today would be happy to implement”.
She slammed “farcical ploys” like the anti-smoking bill and “nonsense that undermines trust in the criminal justice system and fails victims, such as early release of criminals and the elimination of sentence reductions for minor offences.”
She also attacked the “nonsense” claim, made by Liz Truss, that “the mysterious and inexorable presence of the administrative state stops politicians from doing the things they claim to do when they ask us for our vote”.
And she said: “The Conservative Party is acting as if they are entitled to the Conservative vote whether they are doing conservative things or not.”
Although no one has formally launched a campaign to replace Rishi Sunak, Braverman is expected to be the front-runner in any election.
Domestically, her hopes of becoming leader were dealt an early blow after key allies were reportedly preparing to back Robert Jenrick.
Her campaign is said to be “over before it even began” as right-wing MP Danny Kruger is said to be backing former immigration minister Robert Jenrick.
The former home secretary was one of three leadership candidates to appear on Sunday morning political shows last weekend, along with Mr Jenrick and former health secretary Victoria Atkins.
The Conservative Party won just 121 seats, the worst result in the party’s 190-year history, as millions of its voters defected to Mr Farage’s reformist party.
Sunak announced he would step down but remain leader until a successor could be found. On Monday, former business secretary Kevin Hollingrake suggested the leadership contest could drag on until the end of the year, adding: “I don’t think there’s any rush.”
