Tees Valley Mayor urges former Home Secretary to play ‘with civility’
Tees Valley Mayor Sir Ben Houchen has urged Suella Braverman to run the Conservative leadership race with “civility” after warning the party was in danger of becoming a “centrist bigot”.
Braverman, who is thought to be preparing to run for leadership, said the party could do better than become a “collection of fanatical, out-of-touch, centrist bigots”.
She told the Telegraph: “If we don’t win back the voters we have deliberately and arrogantly rejected, the Conservative party will become a 21st century version of the 20th century Liberal party.”
“We can do better than being a bunch of rabid, irrelevant centrist bigots who make it their business to insult the people who should be our voters for not being as vain and self-righteous as we are.”
Lord Houchen was asked about the comments on Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme.
Asked whether the party would benefit from less talk from the former home secretary, Lord Houchen replied: “If we want to spend the next two, three, four, five months fighting each other, that is the cause of our defeat in an election that was only two weeks ago. I would plead with Mr Suella and all the other leadership candidates to conduct this leadership contest with civility. Let’s come together and offer the country a positive option.”
The Tees Valley Mayor also outlined three priorities he would like for Rishi Sunak’s successor: “One, it should not be about the past but what we can deliver for this country in the future.”
“Secondly, I think any leadership candidate needs to rule out any alliance or coalition or any other affiliation with the Reform Party. Those are symptoms of problems, not the cause of problems for the Conservative party.”
“The third point is that there should be no blue-on-blue attacks.”
Others thought to be preparing to run for the leadership include Tom Tugendhat, shadow communities secretary Kemi Badenoch, shadow home secretary James Cleverley, former ministers Robert Jenrick and Priti Patel.
Mr Braverman suggested the Conservatives should welcome Nigel Farage into the party, saying his Reform Party posed an “electoral threat to our existence”.
Backbenchers on the 1922 Committee will decide the rules and timetable for the election to choose Mr Sunak’s successor, and there is division within the party over how long the election should take.
A Conservative poll of 995 members carried out earlier this month put Mr Tugendhat alongside Mr Jenrick on 13% support, with Braverman on 10% and Cleverley on 9%.
Mr Badenoch came in first with 26% and Ms Pretty in sixth place with 3%.
release date: Radio News Hub
