"Suella Braverman once said the Conservative Party needed to do "everything we can" to win back former Tory voters switching to Reform UK. But the former home secretary has now gone in the opposite direction herself, becoming the latest in a clutch of senior Tories to join Nigel Farage's party. A big figure on the right of the party in the last government, she had long been seen as a potential defector to the Reform cause."
"She now says the Conservatives are "too weak to save themselves, let alone the country". Braverman was a notable survivor of the Tory election wipeout in 2024, which saw several of her former cabinet colleagues ejected from Parliament. She won the newly-created Fareham and Waterlooville seat by just over 6,000 votes, down from the 26,086 majority she had enjoyed in the predecessor constituency after the Conservative landslide in 2019."
"She was seen as a potential candidate to run in the leadership race that followed the rout, but in the end she did not throw her hat into the ring in the contest to replace Rishi Sunak. She was not offered a position in Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet, and became a vocal critic of the party's record in office on immigration, net zero and what she branded "woke" thinking. Braverman's rightward leanings were evident at an early age."
Suella Braverman has left the Conservative Party and joined Reform UK, saying the Conservatives are 'too weak to save themselves, let alone the country'. She previously served as home secretary and survived the 2024 Tory election losses, winning Fareham and Waterlooville by just over 6,000 votes, a steep fall from a 26,086 majority in 2019. She considered but did not enter the post-rout leadership contest and was not appointed to Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet. She became a vocal critic of Conservative policies on immigration, net zero and 'woke' thinking. Her conservative instincts appeared early, winning a mock election at school.
Read at www.bbc.com
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