Suella Braverman attacks Progress Pride flag as she blames 'liberal Conservatives' for losing election
The former home secretary blamed "liberal Conservatives" for losing the election after breaking promises to the electorate.
Tuesday 9 July 2024 12:30, UK
Suella Braverman has attacked the Progress Pride flag and said the Conservative government she was part of "presided over the mutilation of children".
The former home secretary criticised the ousted Tory government for flying the Progress Pride flag, which represents the LGBT+ community and calls for a more inclusive society.
She also accused the Conservative government of allowing children to transition to a different gender.
"Far, far too many Tory politicians agree, and still agree, that the Progress flag must be flown to be kind, to be inclusive," she told the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC on Monday.
"It shows how liberal and progressive we are, and that's what many Conservatives want to be.
"The Progress flag says to me, it says to me one monstrous thing: That I was a member of a government that presided over the mutilation of children in our hospitals and from our schools."
The outspoken politician, who is among the likely candidates to succeed Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, was applauded by the audience at the conference organised by Dutch conservative group The Edmund Burke Foundation.
Ms Braverman also reportedly called the Progress Pride flag part of "a horrible political campaign" and said she failed because she could not get it taken down from government department roofs.
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And she said she was "physically repulsed" the Conservatives claimed they "were doing something about trans fanatics when, in fact, what we did was let it happen".
Ms Braverman doubled down on her views on Tuesday, writing on X: "The Progress flag represents the highly contested view that people, including children, can change their sex.
"I disagree with that view.
"Yet the Progress flag is flown on government buildings, by the police, NHS and armed forces.
"It's a symbol of our failure as Conservatives."
The ex-minister, who was re-elected as an MP, blamed her party's defeat on failures to keep their promises and said they had taken a "good hiding".
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"We won a great majority in 2019 promising to do what the people wanted," she said.
"We were going to use our Brexit freedoms and stop waves of illegal migrants. We were going to cut taxes. We were going to stop the lunatic woke virus. We did none of this.
"Our problem is us. Our problem is that the liberal Conservatives who trashed the Tory party think it was everyone's fault but their own.
"My party governed as liberals and we were defeated as liberals. But seemingly, as ever, it is Conservatives who are to blame."
Ms Braverman will speak via video link on Tuesday to a Popular Conservatism post-election event alongside Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Frost aimed at figuring out what went wrong.