Tories hit out at Suella Braverman after she tore into their party’s general election campaign and argued it needed to move to the Right.
The ex-Home Secretary also faced a backlash on Tuesday after she described flying the Progress Pride flag as “monstrous” and blamed "liberal Conservatives" for the party suffering a record defeat in the July 4 poll.
The Tory leadership contender told the National Conservatism conference in Washington that the party had taken a "good hiding" after losing 251 seats as it haemorrhaged votes to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
The former Cabinet minister criticised the flying of the LGBTQ Pride flag to "show how liberal and progressive we are".
"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."
She added: "The Progress flag says to me is 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 Progress flag is an updated version of the Pride ensign and includes black, brown, pink, pale blue and white stripes, to represent marginalised people of colour in the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the trans community, and those living with HIV/AIDS.
But former Tory leader William Hague warned it was “very important for the Conservatives not to turn into a version of the Republican Party in America”.
He told Times Radio: “When you look at the evidence, the analysis of why people say they voted how they did by the polling organisations, of those Conservatives who switched to vote for Reform, which was a lot of them, only 13 per cent of those people said it was because the Conservatives were too left wing. 73 per cent said it was because they thought the Conservatives were not competent.
“And I suspect that the real answer is not that the Conservative are too liberal and all those issues that Suella has been talking about. It is the whole saga of Brexit and then Boris Johnson premiership and then Liz Truss’s premiership and then living standards not improving, public services struggling and nothing much to do with whether they were too Left wing or to Right wing.”
Tees Valley Tory Mayor Lord Houchen said: “The MPs and the members that I speak to are not interested in the divisive Right wing politics of Suella Braverman.
“The fact that she continues to entertain Reform, and even I think in an interview the other day, didn't rule out joining Reform, shows just how out of step she is.
“She, before the leadership contest has even started, has shot herself in the foot.”
Former Stoke MP Jonathan Gullis emphasised: “I think Suella's rhetoric at times could be overly explosive, overly divisive, is not what the country wants to hear in all cases, because I think it is too aggressive.
“I certainly do not think Suella Braverman is the appropriate choice to reunite the Conservative Party.”
Ms Braverman, who spoke via a video link to a Popular Conservatism post-election event alongside Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg and Lord Frost on Tuesday, was re-elected as MP in the redrawn constituency of Fareham and Waterlooville with a 6,000 majority.
Conservative broadcaster Iain Dale was among those who criticised her comments in Washington.
He said: “What a disgusting speech. And she seriously thinks she has a chance of leading the Conservative Party? Not while I have a breath left in my body. Moderate Conservatives need to stand up and be counted. This will not stand.”
Former Home Secretary Priti Patel, ex-Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, ex-Security Minister Tom Tugendhat, ex-Health Secretary Victoria Atkins and ex-Home Office minister Robert Jenrick are believed to be Tory leadership contenders.
Some MPs are understood to want former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith installed at the helm of the party as a "caretaker" leader.
