Conservative MP Suella Braverman has given a brutal assessment of the party's failure to embrace her ideas in a wide-ranging interview during Chopper's Political Podcast on GB News.
The former Home Secretary told Christopher Hope that the Conservatives "lost the trust" of the public ahead of the last election.
She explained: "We lost fundamentally because people didn't trust us anymore on the big issues like my immigration and taxation.
"We've got to be very honest about that. But I think there's a further reason our failure opened the door for another right-wing party to arise in the form of Reform with easy solutions.
Suella Braverman in brutal assessment of Tory failures as she takes swipe at own party
GB News
She added: "I mean, we weren't even committing we weren't even trying on illegal migration.
"I mean my battles have been well chronicled inside Government and then outside Government I tried to campaign for cutting immigration but we didn't even, at the time of the election, commit to a number.
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"I know the most we could muster was a cap on immigration, but that felt half-hearted because by that point we'd lost credibility.
"So we tried to campaign as right-wingers, but we had governed as socialists on taxation and immigration.
"People didn't believe it and that's why it lost its way on what it believes"
Braverman also said that she had given up all ambition about leading the Tory party. She said: "That will be it for me."
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PAShe added: "I very much hope the leader we choose stays in post for a very long time. We do tend to chop and change and I think we've done that with too much frequency in recent years, which is one of the reasons the electorate got fed up with us."
She also said that contrary to speculation, she will not be joining Reform UK. "I'm not going to defect to Reform. And I hope I'm not driven out to Reform by my colleagues."
Braverman pointed to former Tory Lee Anderson who she said "should be sitting as a Conservative Member of Parliament".
SHe continued: "We should have more Conservative Members of Parliament because Reform should not have been the force that it was. And many hundreds, several, many of our MPs lost because of Reform.
Suella Braverman took a swipe at her own party
GB News
"So we talk about a broad church. We should not be hounding out Conservatives, right-wingers, Eurosceptics, or people who want to stand up for our flag and our faith.
"I look at Lee Anderson. Lee Anderson is a good friend of mine, and it's a tragedy that we lost him to Reform. He's someone who speaks with an authentic voice that resonates with a lot of people in Britain."
