Suella Braverman has pulled out of the race to be Tory leader after claiming that MPs disagree with her view on why the party lost the general election.
Writing for the Telegraph, the former Home Secretary said there was no point “for good or ill” in someone like her “running to lead the Tory Party when most of the MPs disagree with my diagnosis and prescription”.
Ms Braverman retained her seat of Fareham and Waterlooville in the July 4 vote but recently sparked outrage after describing the flying of the Progress Pride flag as “monstrous”.
In her article, Ms Braverman claimed the Conservatives had lost the election due to failures on migration and taxes.
She also blamed failing to “tackle the long tail of Blairism” contained in the Human Rights Act, Equality Act and European Convention on Human Rights and for being in power as “transgender ideology and critical race theory seeped into our institutions”.
“The traumatised party does not want to hear these things said out loud,” she wrote.
"I've been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to see that the Tory Party does not want to hear this. And so I will bow out here," she added.
Ms Braverman insisted that she had the backing of the 10 MPs needed to run for the leadership contest.
The news came as Cabinet minister Kemi Badenoch announced her bid for the Tory leadership on Sunday evening.
Ms Badenoch, an early favourite with bookmakers, joins Dame Priti Patel, Mel Stride, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly and Robert Jenrick in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Conservative leader.
Nominations close at 2.30pm on Monday.
Writing in The Times, Ms Badenoch said the party deserved to lose in the general election because it was “unsure of who we were, what we were for and how we could build a new country”.
She wrote: “The country will not vote for us if we don’t know who we are or what we want to be. That is why I am seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party to renew our movement and, with the support of the British people, to get it to work for our country again.”
Contenders need a proposer, seconder and eight other backers to stand.
The parliamentary party will narrow the field down to four, who will make their case at the Conservative Party conference, which runs from September 29 to October 2.
The final two, picked by the parliamentary party, will then go to a vote of party members in an online ballot that will close on October 31 with the result announced on November 2.
