Suella Braverman should “concentrate on the job” rather than giving speeches to the Tory right, warned a former cabinet minister amid growing concerns she is trying to pitch herself as a future party leader.
Robert Buckland offered a warning to the home secretary after she set out her hardline vision and railed against “experts and elites” at a speech at the National Conservative Conference.
Other senior Tories told The Independent that Ms Braverman is already “overpromoted” and urged Rishi Sunak to sack her while he still has the chance.
Speaking at an event arranged by a right-wing US think tank, Ms Braverman attacked “radical gender ideology” and blamed left-wing politics for “making people feel terrible about our past”.
Mr Buckland told Sky News: “I am saying to the home secretary, she has got a big job to do. I know she wants to do it. I think getting on and doing that job is exactly where she needs to be.”
The former justice secretary said: “I think all departmental ministers should stick to their brief and talk to their brief. We have scheduled conferences which can be used by senior members of the government.”
Asked if Ms Braverman was pitching herself to the party as a future leader, Mr Buckland said: “The top job is filled by Rishi Sunak.”
He added: “I want him and most Conservatives want him to stay post and to be our prime minister, winning a general election and governing our country with maturity. Now is the time for the team to work with him, to support him and to project the five priorities he set out.”
Mr Buckland – an ally of Mr Sunak who initially backed him in last year’s Tory leadership campaign before switching to Liz Truss – was a senior backer of Mr Sunak’s second leadership in October.
Addressing the National Conservatism Conference, Ms Braverman also argued that “you cannot have immigration without integration” and “the unexamined drive towards multiculturalism” is a “recipe for communal disaster”.
She was the star attraction of the first day of the three-day gathering in Westminster. She set out the Conservative philosophy instilled in her by her parents, recounting their arrival stories in the UK in move that will be seen in the context of her leadership ambitions.
Suella Braverman railed against ‘elites’ at right-wing conference
But some Tory MPs have accused her of focusing on her personal ambitious to succeed Mr Sunak rather than focusing on the job.
A senior Tory MP told The Independent: “She can be as open as she likes [about her leadership ambitions] – she hasn’t got a prayer of becoming leader. She is overpromoted as it is.”
Calling her a “puppet” of the right-wing Common Sense Group of Tory MPs, the former minister added: “It is time that the PM realised that the emperor has no clothes and sacks her. The unpleasant tone in her approach to immigration is not popular with many colleagues.”
One unnamed minister told The Guardian: “She’s not waiting for the election, but is pitching for prime minister now … You would think being home secretary was some side hustle.”
Another Tory MP said: “It was rather rich that she was highlighting the problems with our immigration system when she’s been in charge of it for the past nine months. It was all about her ambitions, not about improving things.”
A senior Tory ally of Ms Braverman called for his party to pursue “authentic” conservatism rather than the “sugar-free” version accepted “by our liberal masters” during a speech to the right-wing conference on Tuesday.
Sir John Hayes – who chairs the “anti-woke” Common Sense Group of Tory MPs – warned that there was a “widening chasm between the people of Britain and the elite who profess to serve them”.
Moderate Tory Tobias Ellwood, chair of the defence select committee, told The Independent: “It’s disappointing to hear these shrill, populist voices on the far right already dismiss our election prospects at the very time polls are starting to narrow. This tribal disloyalty only benefits Labour.”
No 10 rejected a claim from Tory MP Danny Kruger at the conference that families with mothers and fathers staying together are “the only basis for safe and functioning society”. Asked Mr Sunak agreed with Mr’s Kruger views about a “normative family”, the spokesperson replied: “No.”
The head of a US think tank also told the conference on Tuesday that left-wing forces are “at war with the West”. Kevin Roberts, chair of Washington-based Heritage Foundation, attacked “globalists” and “ruling class contempt of everyday working families”.
“Which is why it reserves a singular hatred for the kind of conservatism represented by Donald Trump and [Florida governor] Ron DeSantis, by Brexit, by [Hungarian president] Viktor Orban, and yes by this conference,” he said.
Monday’s gathering of right-wing conservatives in London began with an invocation of the spirit of Margaret Thatcher.
Opening the National Conservatism conference, chairman Christopher DeMuth said he had been “communing” with the late PM about the conference. He told delegates: “I am happy to report that she is totally on board.”
