UK’s Suella Braverman lashes out over Tory leadership race

London: Britain’s former home secretary, Suella Braverman, on Monday lashed out at her Conservative Party colleagues for branding her “mad, bad and dangerous” as she decided not to contest the Tory leadership contest to succeed Rishi Sunak as Opposition Leader.

The 44-year-old Indian-origin member of Parliament from Fareham and Waterlooville in south-east England was widely expected to not join the race by Monday’s nomination deadline to go up against fellow Indian-origin former home secretary Priti Patel and other former ministers – Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat, Robert Jenrick and Mel Stride.

However, contrary to some media reports that she had failed to find the requisite 10 MPs to propose her candidacy, Braverman said she had chosen to step aside because her party was unwilling to accept her diagnosis of what led to its worst electoral defeat in history earlier this month. “I’ve been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to see that the Tory Party does not want to hear the truths I’ve set out,” writes Braverman in ‘The Daily Telegraph’.

“Although I’m grateful to the 10 MPs who wanted to nominate me for the leadership, getting onto the ballot is not enough.”