Suella Braverman MP, former Home Secretary, has faced backlash after she described flying the Progress Pride flag as “monstrous” and blamed “liberal Conservatives” for the party suffering a record defeat in General Election.
Braverman, who is touted as new Tory leader, was speaking at the the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC, criticised the flying of the LGBTQ Pride flag to “show how liberal and progressive we are”.
“We won a great majority in 2019 promising to do what the people wanted,” she said.
“We were going to use our Brexit freedoms and stop waves of illegal migrants. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus. We did none of this.
“Our problem is us. 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: “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.”
The Progress flag is an updated version of the Pride ensign and includes black, brown, pink, pale blue and white stripes, to represent marginalised people of colour in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the trans community, and those living with HIV/AIDS.
Braverman has come under fire following these comments, with former Tory leader William Hague warning it was “very important for the Conservatives not to turn into a version of the Republican Party in America”.
Former Stoke MP Jonathan Gullis added: “I think Suella’s rhetoric at times could be overly explosive, overly divisive, is not what the country wants to hear in all cases, because I think it is too aggressive.
In addition to Braverman, ex- Home Secretary Priti Patel, ex-Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, ex-Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, ex-Health Secretary Victoria Atkins and ex-Home Office minister Robert Jenrick are believed to be Tory leadership contenders.
