Andrew Matthews/PA
Suella Braverman has withdrawn from the Tory leadership contest, saying the party “doesn’t want to hear the truth” as to why it lost the election.
The former home secretary said she had the required 10 MPs backing her candidacy to get her above the threshold to enter the race, but said there was no point in someone like her “running to lead the Tory Party when most of the MPs disagree with my diagnosis and prescription”.
The move is likely to bolster former immigration minister Robert Jenrick’s run for the leadership as her standing would likely have split the Right-wing vote.
He is currently running against Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, Mel Stride and the former home secretary Dame Priti Patel, whi have also thrown their hats into the ring.
In her article, Mrs Braverman says the “disastrous” election result was not “some freak, ‘loveless landslide’ for Labour but because the Tories “got things monumentally wrong”.
She says that this was the reason she apologised on election night and “meant it”, both then and now.
Mrs Braverman won her Fareham and Waterloo seat with a majority of more than 6,000, telling voters that she was “sorry my party didn’t listen to you”.
She wrote that the party’s overall loss “was predicted, preventable, deserved and, as yet, unaddressed”.
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