A TORY MP has told Suella Braverman to “concentrate on her job” amid claims from her own party that she undermined Rishi Sunak’s authority with her speech at the National Conservatism Conference.
After being interrupted by two protesters, the Home Secretary delivered her speech with a promise to take on the “radical left”.
One senior Tory MP told The Guardian the Prime Minister “needs to make it clear to her that she is either a team player or a backbencher”.
Braverman also said that conservatism “has no truck with political correctness” in her speech organised by the right-wing US think tank the Edmund Burke Foundation.
Sir @RobertBuckland : The Home Secretary has a big job to do, and the Conservative party conference is where values should be projected.
— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) May 16, 2023
Kay: So she should shut up is what you're saying..? #KayBurley FC pic.twitter.com/Y4U64OBdFQ
In an interview with Sky News, Tory MP and former justice secretary Robert Buckland was asked about Braverman’s comments.
He said people want a “clear and consistent” message from the UK Government.
“I think on one level having a lively policy debate shows that we’re not just talking about personalities, we’re talking about issues that will very often matter to people out there which I think is a healthy thing," he said.
Asked by Kay Burley if he was telling Braverman to “shut up”. He replied: “I’m saying to the Home Secretary that she’s got a big job to do, I know she wants to do it.
“I think getting on and doing that job is exactly where she needs to be.”
He said that the party’s scheduled conferences were the places views should be expressed with Burley pressing him once again on whether Braverman should “shut up”.
Buckland continued: “Well let’s concentrate on the job and we have as I say scheduled conferences which can be used by senior members of the government to project their message.”
“I’m going to take that as a yes”, Burley added.
Another MP told The Guardian that the majority of their Tory colleagues were “rolling their eyes” at Braverman’s unhelpful appearance at the conference.
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In one section of her speech, she also took aim at Labour leader Keir Starmer, saying: “Given his definition of a woman, we can’t rule him out from running to be Labour’s first female prime minister.”
She said the left was “ashamed” of the UK’s history and that it could “only sell its vision for the future by making people feel terrible about our past”.
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