Former home secretary Suella Braverman gives a speech at Fareham Leisure Centre in Fareham, Hampshire, after her victory in the Fareham and Waterlooville constituency in the 2024 General Election, July 5, 2024
BLUE-on-blue political warfare erupted today as Tory leadership hopefuls engaged in “righter-than-thou” posturing.
The right-wing former immigration minister Robert Jenrick was derided as being on “the left of the party” by the even more extreme Suella Braverman, the former home secretary sacked after clashing with the police over the banning of pro-Palestine marches.
And the hapless Rishi Sunak was urged to expel Ms Braverman from the Tory Party after she attacked the flying of the Progress variant on the Pride flag as “monstrous.”
Once derided by Farage as a ‘fraud,’ Jenrick has defected to Reform, bringing experience and political ruthlessness to the populist right — and raising the unsettling prospect of a Farage-led movement with a seasoned operative pulling the strings, says ANDREW MURRAY
The Tories’ trouble is rooted in the British capitalist Establishment now being more disoriented and uncertain of its social mission than before, argues ANDREW MURRAY
KEITH FLETT traces how the ‘world’s most successful political party’ has imploded since Thatcher’s fall, from nine leaders in 30 years to losing all 16 English councils, with Reform UK symbolically capturing Peel’s birthplace, Tamworth — but the beast is not dead yet
