Braverman urges Tories to prepare for ‘reality and frustration of opposition’

Former home secretary Suella Braverman has urged the Conservative Party to “read the writing on the wall” and “prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition”.

Polls suggest Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is set for a big victory in Thursday’s General Election, and it is forecast to win more seats than it did in 1997.

Survation pollsters quizzed 34,558 respondents online and by phone and have said a Labour landslide of more than 418 seats – the number the party took under Tony Blair’s leadership 27 years ago – is “99% certain”.

Writing in The Telegraph, Ms Braverman said victory should no longer be the goal for the Tories.

“Thursday’s vote is now all about forming a strong enough opposition,” she wrote.

“One needs to read the writing on the wall: it’s over, and we need to prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition.”

Ms Braverman blamed the situation on a fracture within the Conservative Party resulting from a rise in Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.

She said: “It is notable that Labour’s vote share has not markedly increased in recent weeks, but our vote is evaporating from both Left and Right.

“The critics will cite Boris (Johnson), Liz (Truss), Rwanda, and, I can immodestly predict, even me as all being fatal to our ‘centrist’ vote.

“The reality is rather different: we are haemorrhaging votes largely to Reform. Why? Because we failed to cut immigration or tax or deal with the net zero and woke policies we have presided over for 14 years.

“We may lose hundreds of excellent MPs because of our abject inability to have foreseen this inevitability months ago: that our failure to unite the Right would destroy us.”

In the article, Ms Braverman also said her party had no right to rebuke Mr Farage and his party for the racism row it had been embroiled in after the Conservatives accepted money from donor Frank Hester despite his alleged suggestion that Labour’s Diane Abbott made him want to “hate all black women”.

She wrote: “Cries of hurt and anger look less powerful when the Conservative Party was perfectly happy to take the money from Frank Hester. Remarks about hating black women were glossed over in the name of filling our party coffers.”

Ms Braverman said the Tories need “a searingly honest post-match analysis”, “because the fight for the soul of the Conservative Party will determine whether we allow Starmer a clear run at destroying our country for good or having a chance to redeem it in due course.

“Indeed, it will decide whether our party continues to exist at all.”

Reform leader Mr Farage, who has previously invited Ms Braverman to join his party, said her critique was “spot on” and he “couldn’t have put it better” himself.

“But the party she says she wants to see already exists and it’s called Reform UK,” he said.

“The only logical conclusion you can take from her evisceration of her own party is that if you want to see people in the Commons fighting for the policies she espouses and standing up to Starmer, you need to vote for Reform UK.

“Forget the Tories bringing Boris back from his long summer holiday to resuscitate Rishi’s expiring campaign at the 11th hour. That’s like asking the guy who gave you Ebola for the kiss of life.”