Suella Braverman flies the flag for a Tory lurch to the right

Conventional wisdom holds that the party’s drift rightward opened up the centre ground of British politics and allowed Labour to hoover up middle-of-the-road voters and sweep into power.  

There will be voices arguing that the time has come to steer the Conservative caravan back towards this fertile ground, where elections are so often one or lost.  

But another school of thought holds now is not the time to back down, but to double down. 

Having seen Nigel Farage’s party leach a third of their natural voters, some Tory minds feel they should outright out-right the Reform party, and take back control of this political narrative for themselves.  

Not for them, the mea culpas, time-for-reflections, and how-could-we-get-it-so-wrongs – the problem was, this line of thinking goes, is ‘we didn’t get it Right’ enough.  

And so step forward Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary who may not be the soul of the Conservative Party, but possibly its whole boot.

 Suella Braverman spoke at the Popular Conservatism event via video

As one of the few Tory ex-ministers left amidst the wreckage, she’s been heavily tipped to stand for party leader and to stamp her vision of Conservatism onto the Tories.  

Ms Braverman, who is on record for wanting to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, scrap the Human Rights Act and rewrite the Equality Act, had her chance to lay out her stall this week, and she set about it with gusto.  

But let’s rewind slightly, to the heady atmosphere of July 5 when the scale of the Tories defeat became apparent. 

As Rishi Sunak stepped down as Prime Minister, and said he would pass the Conservative Party leader’s baton to whomever wanted to rule among the ashes, he was gracious in defeat. 

“I would like to say, first and foremost, I am sorry,” he said. Sorry to his country, his colleagues – especially those collecting their p45s – and to the legions of campaign volunteers whose efforts came to nothing.  

He may not have been the UK’s choice, or even the Tory Party members’ first pick for the job, but he went out like a statesman, taking responsibility and congratulating Sir Keir Starmer on his victory: 

“In this job, his successes will be all our successes, and I wish him and his family well. 

“Whatever our disagreements in this campaign, he is a decent, public-spirited man, who I respect,” he said.  

Ms Braverman's arch enemy - the Pride flag (Image: PA)

This apology wasn’t something Ms Braverman could endorse. Just 72 hours later she was on the other side of the pond, in Washington, laying the blame for the election defeat solely at the door of Rishi Sunak, and his legion of ‘liberal Conservatives’.  

Speaking at the National Conservatism conference in Washington, she admitted her party had taken a “good hiding”, but stopped far short of taking any sort of responsibility.  

She said: “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.” 

READ MORE: An election campaign the Conservatives will want to forget

READ MORE: Scottish Conservative MSP warns over move to right after Braverman attack

Among her evidence for this – aside from the failure of the Rwanda scheme – was that public buildings flew the rainbow Pride Progress flag.  

She had tried to stop this, she said. And had gone all the way to the Prime Minister in doing so.  

Sidestepping the fact the Home Secretary had both the time and the inclination to fret so much about flags she was banging the door of No 10 Downing Street about it, her comments on the prevalence of Pride reveal something of how she saw the issue as emblematic of the drift from the type of Conservatism she wants to see.  

She said: “The Progress flag flew over our buildings as if they were occupied territory – I actually asked, as a minister, “why is this happening? who says that it has to?” – and could get no answer. 

“None that would be committed to paper anyway. I wanted to scrap the unconscious bias training which basically taught people how bad and racist Britain was. I was told that ‘I was on the wrong side of history’ by my senior civil servant. 

“I don’t say this to boast or curry favour with you as an audience, but to starkly confess my failure: I couldn’t even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.” 

Suella Braverman has hit out at 'liberal conservatives' (Image: PA)

And who was to blame? Those pesky Conservative colleagues of hers: “My question – why is this happening? – went to 10 Downing Street," she said. 

“To the Prime Minister’s office. And that’s where the answer failed to come from. Because, to repeat this point once more, far, far too many Tory politicians agreed that the Progress flag must be flown. 

“It shows how liberal and progressive we are. Which is something many Conservatives want us to be.” 

Throwing some red meat to her audience, she added: “The Progress flag says one, monstrous, thing to me: that I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals.”  

Which is a terrible thing to lay at the door of a piece of cloth on a pole. But, having dispensed her wisdom about this piece of fearful fabric, Ms Braverman was soon back on home soil, waging war on her favourite enemy; destitute people fleeing to the UK on dangerous boats with nothing but the shirts on their backs.  

Speaking at a Popular Conservatism event in London this week alongside ex-Tory Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, she switched her sights to the Tories not stopping a “wave of illegal immigrants” for their defeat. 

She said: “We were going to stop the wave of illegal migrants landing on our shores. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to lower overall illegal migration. 

“We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus working its way through the British state. 

“The harsh reality – this is a lesson we all need to learn and face up to – is that we did none of that.” 

Rishi Sunak has stood down as Conservative party leader (Image: PA)

As someone who only joined Rishi Sunak’s cabinet on the grounds he implemented the Rwanda scheme, who presided over the Bibby Stockholm ‘put-asylum-seekers-on-barge' project and who once blocked a man from returning to the UK over a cannabis-related conviction when he was a teenager, this was Braverman back on familiar territory.  

Immigration is one area which Reform UK has successfully made their own, and if the Tories are to reclaim those voters, talking tough on the subject may be something they have to do.  

But it looks as though Braverman’s boat has sailed – with her shadow cabinet colleague and leadership rival Kemi Badenoch criticising her rants as a “very public nervous breakdown”, if reports are to be believed.  

With the Tories as fractured as they are currently, their only hope is to find someone who can unify the party and bring in some stability. 

It is difficult to see them rallying behind the flag of someone who blames everyone but herself for their defeat, and wants to retreat further from the centre.  

Maybe going too far to the right is just the wrong thing to do.