Suella Braverman says no time to oust Sunak so he
must ‘own this and fix it’
Former home secretary says PM’s ‘plan is not working’
and he needs to change course after local elections drubbing
Rowena
Mason Whitehall editor
Sun 5 May
2024 10.44 BST
Suella
Braverman has said the Conservatives have run out of time to oust Rishi Sunak
but he needs to “own this and fix it”, after local election results indicated
the UK is heading for a Labour government.
The former
home secretary said Sunak’s “plan is not working” and the prime minister needed
to change course, as “at this rate we will be lucky to have any Conservative
MPs at the next election”.
Braverman
spoke out after the Conservatives lost 400 council seats in the local
elections, as well as Andy Street as the West Midlands mayor, and 10 police and
crime commissioners.
Street has
called for the Conservatives to move to the centre to address voters’ concerns,
while others have warned the party is facing more of a challenge on their left
flank than the right.
The former
West Midlands mayor said: “The thing everyone should take from Birmingham and
the West Midlands tonight is this brand of moderative, inclusive, tolerant
conservatism, that gets on and delivered, has come within an ace of beating the
Labour party in what they considered to be their backyard – that’s the message
from here tonight.”
However,
Sunak is in a bind because the Reform UK party is also taking votes from the
Tories on the right, coming within a 150 votes of the party in the Blackpool
South byelection.
Braverman
said Tory voters were “on strike” as Sunak is not Conservative enough, with his
ban on smoking and legislation against pedicabs, and instead called for action
on the European court of human rights, a cap on legal migration and more tax
cuts.
Braverman,
who was sacked by Sunak last year, told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg:
“I’m urging the prime minister to change course, to with humility reflect on
what voters are telling us and change the plan and the way that he’s
communicating and leading us.”
Pressed on
why he should not be removed if the situation was so bad, she said: “Listen, I
just don’t think that is a feasible prospect, we don’t have enough time and
it’s impossible for anyone new to change our fortunes. There’s no superman or
superwoman out there. Rishi Sunak has been leading us for 18 months. These are
consequences of his decisions. He needs to own this and therefore he needs to
fix it.”
Braverman
did not directly answer the question when asked whether she had been involved
in plotting against Sunak but said many of her colleagues were “privately
demoralised”.
She also
launched a tirade against Starmer, saying it was a “disgrace we are trailing up
against Labour led by Keir Starmer who has the charisma of a peanut, who is
overseeing a party which is a rabble of hard-left maniacs, who would undo
Brexit, who would open our borders, and who would indoctrinate our institutions
and our schools with politically correct madness”.
Starmer
called on Sunday for Sunak to call an election. Writing in the Observer, he
said: “Whichever political party you belong to or support, what is unforgivable
is leaving your country after a period in government in a worse state than when
you found it. It’s time for him to put the country first and call an election.
“Labour is
on the starting line, raring to go and itching to implement our plan for a
decade of national renewal. These elections showed more people are joining our
mission to change the country as well.”
Labour
added about 180 seats, to reach more than 1,100 overall, while the Lib Dems
gained 100 seats to grow to a total of about 520 councillors. The Conservatives
lost about 470 seats and dropped to about 513 councillors, meaning they were
outperformed by the Lib Dems, according to results counted so far. Labour won
the mayoralties of the East Midlands, North East, and York and North Yorkshire,
which covers Sunak’s own constituency.
Pat
McFadden, Labour’s elections chief, said there were “tremendous results”
overall but acknowledged the party’s approach to Gaza had been a factor in
losing councillors in some areas. He said there was “a mood of change in the
country and we have to meet it”.
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