‘I’ve had enough!’ Tory civil war erupts as senior figure turns on Suella Braverman
Sir Robert Buckland, fresh off his defeat in South Swindon, has launched a blindside at his former MP colleagues.
Election 2024: Robert Buckland 'fed up' with Conservative colleagues
The blue-on-blue Tory recriminations from this evening’s defeat have already begun, as former Tory MP grandee Sir Robert Buckland tore into the likes of Suella Braverman.
Sir Robert, who was defeated in South Swindon earlier tonight, launched the bruising civil war as he blasted colleagues for lies and “performance arts politics”.
He fumed “I’m fed up with performance art politics. I’ve watched colleagues in the Conservative Party strike poses, write inflammatory op-eds and say stupid things they know have no evidence for instead of getting on with the job”.
“I’ve had enough of it. I want the Conservative Party to get back to the ethos of doing stuff well, of being competent, not pretending to please the media.
“If we can get back to that I think we have more than a fighting chance at the next election, but we need to do it quickly and we need to wake up now”.
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Asked who in particular he was thinking of with his furious verbal attack, Sir Robert revealed: “I think we’ve seen in this election astonishing ill-discipline within the party”.
“To see articles written before a vote is cast in the general election about the party heading for defeat and what the prognosis should be is spectacularly unprofessional and ill-disciplined, that’s not the Conservative Party I joined… I expect more from colleagues.
“I also expect more from colleagues in senior office to get a grip of their brief and portfolio and also understand politics is about hard choices, it’s about doing the detail.”
Sir Robert’s fury was a thinly veiled targeted attack on Suella Braverman, who just two days ago launched a blistering attack on her own party, and telling them to “prepare for the reality and frustration of opposition”.
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She raged: “Our vote is evaporating from both Left and Right… The critics will cite Boris, Liz, Rwanda and, I can immodestly predict, even me as all being fatal to our ‘centrist’ vote. The reality is rather different: we are haemorrhaging votes largely to Reform”.
Asked specifically about Ms Braverman, Sir Robert said he was talking about the former Home Secretary but it wasn’t an “isolated example”.
“I’m fed up of personal agendas and jockeying for position.
“The reality now is that with the Conservatives facing armageddon, it’s going to be like a bunch of bald men fighting over a comb.”
The Tories also began bickering with Reform UK today, as one of the party’s media cheerleaders Isabel Oakeshott took aim at Andrea Jenkyns over her swearing at protestors when entering No. 10.
However Dame Andrea hit back, tweeting: “Good morning, Isabel. You didn’t seem to have a problem with me when your boyfriend [Richard Tice] was begging me to join Reform”.
Both rows suggest the fallout from tonight’s election result will not be pretty.
