As rumours continue to swirl about who will make a bid for the Tory leadership, Suella Braverman has been on manoeuvres in Washington. The former home secretary’s speech at the National Conservatism conference in the US constituted a rather scathing attack on her own party, and has ruffled feathers across the political spectrum.
In a speech considered to be part of her leadership bid, Braverman refused to pull any punches. Slamming equality and diversity training, the ex-cabinet minister told her crowd that:
We Tory ministers, nominally in charge of the system, completely failed. The Progress flag flew over our buildings as if they were occupied territory… I wanted to scrap the unconscious bias training which basically taught people how bad and racist Britain was. I was told that “I was on the wrong side of history” by my senior civil servant. I don’t say this to boast or curry favour with you as an audience, but to starkly confess my failure: I couldn’t even get the flag of a horrible political campaign I disagreed with taken down from the roof of the government department I was supposed to be in charge of.
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