Suella Braverman news – live: Home secretary warns Tories to stop infighting amid rift reports
Downing Street earlier denied a rift between Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak
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Setting out her vision for conservatism at a right-wing conference in central London, Home Secretary Suella Braverman has warned the Conservative Party to stop infighting.
Amid reports of fresh rifts in the cabinet, Ms Braverman told the audience at the National Conservatism conference: “One way that we Conservatives must distinguish ourselves from the Left is by not devouring ourselves through fratricide.”
Ms Braverman, who unsuccessfully ran as Conservative Party leader last year, added that she was “optimistic about the future of conservatism, our great nation and of Western civilisation”.
Earlier, Downing Street was forced to deny a rift between Ms Braverman and Rishi Sunak amid reports she would push the PM to bring down overall migration.
Mr Sunak’s official spokesman said: “She continues to represent the UK government views on all issues relating to the Home Office, as you would expect.”
Ms Braverman also attacked left-wing politics, saying it was “making people feel terrible about our past”.
Braverman issues warning against Conservative infighting
Suella Braverman has set out her vision for conservatism at a right-wing conference in central London.
The home secretary, who unsuccessfully ran as Conservative Party leader last year, said she was “optimistic about the future of conservatism, our great nation and of Western civilisation”.
In a lengthy address to the National Conservatism Conference in Westminster, she talked of her own parents’ arrival in Britain “through legal and controlled migration”.
She said other immigrants “should embrace and respect this country”, adding: “They need to learn English and understand British social norms and mores – which is not to say that they cannot enrich and add to our culture.”
Ms Braverman attacked left-wing politics, saying it was “making people feel terrible about our past”.
“White people do not exist in a special state of sin or collective guilt - nobody should be blamed for things that happened before they were born,” she added: “The defining feature of this country’s relationship with slavery is not that we practised it, but that we led the way in abolishing it.”
Ms Braverman also discussed transgender issues at several points, claiming that “radical gender ideology is leading to the mutilation and abuse of our children”.
Amid reports of fresh rifts in the cabinet, Ms Braverman also issued a warning against infighting, telling the audience: “One way that we Conservatives must distinguish ourselves from the Left is by not devouring ourselves through fratricide.”
That’s it for our live coverage of the conference today, we’ll bring you the latest updates tomorrow. In the meantime, you can read our wrap of the event here.
Who are the ‘National Conservatives’ and what do they stand for?
As the National Conservative Conference meets in London, already a couple of keynote speeches by Suella Braverman and Jacob Rees-Mogg have provided some controversy. For many in the Conservative party, the National Conservative movement, which began in the United States, is another unwelcome faction in a divided party, with alarmingly fascistic overtones.
To its supporters, it represents a rebirth of traditional conservative values after flirtations in recent decades with social liberalism, multiculturalism, diversity, equality and globalisation. Suffice to say it seems well-funded and, like the Conservative Democratic Organisation grouping within the Conservative party, enjoys some popularity among the grassroots and rightist elements in the media.
It is little more than crude populism and could fragment the Tory party, says Sean O’Grady:
Who are the ‘National Conservatives’ and what do they stand for?
It is little more than crude populism and could fragment the Tory party, says Sean O’Grady
Margaret Thatcher ‘totally on board’ with National Conservatism conference
Monday’s gathering of conservatives in London began with an invocation of the spirit of Margaret Thatcher.
Opening the National Conservatism conference in Westminster’s Emmanuel Centre, chairman Christopher DeMuth said he had been “communing” with the late prime minister about the conference.
He told delegates: “I am happy to report that she is totally on board.”
Monday’s meeting was the start of a three-day event bringing together right-wing politicians, journalists and thinkers to discuss the potential of “national conservatism” to provide a path towards renewal for the Conservative Party.
The conference is a project of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a “public affairs institute” based in Washington DC which has held conferences across Europe and America since 2019 to promote the ideas of national conservatism.
Margaret Thatcher ‘totally on board’ with National Conservatism conference
Speakers at the event argued for one potential future for the Tories based on nation, family and culture.
Suella Braverman’s ‘vision for conservatism’ is a psychodrama of self-interest, writes Tom Peck
The Tory Party knows it is sinking. You can tell not only because so many of them have already got their eye on the soon to be vacant captain’s job, but also because they reckon they can get it by driving into the iceberg again, but this time even harder.
For some reason, the Conservative Party are having not one but two fully deranged “conventions” over the weekend and into this week, and both are seeking to outdo the other in their complete and utter failure to understand the inevitable consequences of absolutely everything they’ve done.
It’s commendable, in a way. The psychodrama of self-interest is all that most of them have cared about for a very long time, so we, the mere people, should be grateful that they’ve now hired a range of cheap convention facilities in which to do it, freeing at least some of them to plough on with the quotidian humdrum of actually running the country. That hasn’t always been the case.
Tom Peck writes:
Suella’s ‘vision for conservatism’ is a psychodrama of self-interest | Tom Peck
Two different protesters tried to stop her, but what’s the point? No one can. Braverman always ploughs on, entirely unencumbered by any kind of contact with reality
Rwanda asylum plan: Timeline of government’s policy to deport migrants
The Rwanda plan to deport asylum-seekers who arrive in the UK is back in the courts after it was deemed wrong that the High Court ruled the scheme lawful.
The appeal hearing ran from Monday 24 April to Thursday 27 April but the judges have not yet said when a verdict will be announced.
Flights cannot currently take off to Rwanda while legal proceedings are ongoing.
It comes as Home Secretary Suella Braverman shared her vision for conservatism at a right-wing conference in London on 15 May, citing her own parents’ arrival in Britain via “legal and controlled migration”.
This is how events leading up to this point unfolded, starting with the announcement of the scheme in April 2022.
Rwanda asylum plan: Timeline of goverment’s policy to deport migrants
How the events leading up to the Rwanda plan’s return to court and Suella Braverman’s conservatism speech unfolded
‘True face of modern Tory party’ revealed at today’s conference, says Angela Rayner
Angela Rayner MP, Labour’s Deputy Leader, commenting on today’s National Conservative conference, said: “The true face of the modern Tory Party has revealed itself today. Rather than focus on the cost of living crisis, the state of the NHS, crime or house building, Tory MPs and cabinet ministers have instead chosen to hold a carnival of conspiracy theory and self-pity.
“Beneath the outward veneer of respectability, the Tories have nothing to offer the country beyond more failure, more excuses and more divisive politics.
“Until Rishi Sunak finds the backbone to stand up to the cranks in his party, he will always be in hoc to those painting a bleak, defeatist vision of our country’s future. Only Labour can build a better Britain - a place of growth and optimism that moves on from 13 years of Tory failure.”
Braverman insists it is not hypocritical of her to push for lower migration
Suella Braverman has insisted it is not hypocritical for her, the child of migrants, to push for lower migration.
Addressing the National Conservatism Conference, the Home Secretary also argued that “you cannot have immigration without integration” and “the unexamined drive towards multiculturalism” is a “recipe for communal disaster”.
Ms Braverman was the star attraction of the first day of the three-day gathering in Westminster, but her speech, like that of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s earlier, was interrupted by protesters who were quickly hauled out.
She set out the Conservative philosophy instilled in her by her parents, whose arrival stories in the UK she recounted in a wide-ranging speech that will be seen in the context of her leadership ambitions.
She said: “Ours, like my parents’, is a politics of optimism of pride, national unity, aspiration, and realism.
“The left’s is a politics of pessimism, guilt, national division, resentment, and utopianism.”
Ms Braverman said that people who come to the UK “must not commit crimes”, “need to learn English and understand British social norms” and “cannot simply turn up and say: ‘I live here now, you have to look after me’”.
Her parents “embraced British values”, she said, adding that “you cannot have immigration without integration”.
Sophie Wingate reports:
Braverman insists it is not hypocritical of her to push for lower migration
The Home Secretary praised her immigrant parents’ embrace of British values as she railed against the ‘unexamined drive towards multiculturalism’.
Voter ID is ‘gerrymandering’ which backfired on Tories, says Rees-Mogg
The Conservative government’s introduction of voter ID was an attempt at “gerrymandering” that backfired against the party, senior Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg has said.
The former cabinet minister said the policy – which saw voters required to have photo ID when voting at England’s local elections – had made it harder for elderly Tories to vote and “upset a system that worked perfectly well”.
Speaking at the National Conservatism conference on Monday, Mr Rees-Mogg said: “Parties that try and gerrymander end up finding their clever scheme comes back to bite them – as dare I say we found by insisting on voter ID for elections.”
“We found the people who didn’t have ID were elderly and they by and large voted Conservative, so we made it hard for our own voters and we upset a system that worked perfectly well,” he added.
Adam Forrest reports:
Voter ID is ‘gerrymandering’ which backfired on Tories, says Rees-Mogg
Elderly Tory voters didn’t have ID for local elections, says ex-cabinet minister
Braverman: Conservatives sceptical of ‘self-appointed gurus, experts and elites’
Suella Braverman has said Conservatives are “sceptical of self-appointed gurus, experts and elites”.
The Home Secretary told a packed hall at the National Conservatism conference that Conservatives “prize experience, judgment and wisdom,” saying she would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.
“Common sense and a shared understanding of who we are and what really matters in life have vastly more to recommend themselves than does anything that emanates from an ivory tower,” she said.
“Measuring diversity only on the basis of skin colour, sex and sexuality is mindbogglingly myopic. Identity politics is the politics of grievance and division.”
She added the goal of identity politics is “the infinite division of society”.
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