Tory MP thinks Braverman will defect to Reform UK after ‘pissing off the gays’

A Tory MP has suggested that Suella Braverman could defect to Reform UK after facing a backlash for making a controversial anti-LGBTQ+ speech.

The former home secretary launched into a tirade against Pride flags and trans healthcare during a speech at the National Conservatism Conference in the US, saying she was “physically repulsed” by gender-affirming care for anyone under the age of 18.

The MP for Fareham and Waterlooville, in Hampshire, added that she believed the party’s willingness to fly Pride flags over government buildings was why it failed to win last week’s general election.

“We Tory ministers, nominally in charge of the system, completely failed,” she said. “The Progress flag flew over our buildings as if they were occupied territory. I asked, as a minister: ‘Why is this happening, who says that it has to?’ and could get no answer.”

Braverman’s continued bashing of her own party has opened a schism of infighting, with some fellow MPs describing her as “cack-handed” and “misjudged”.

One anonymous Tory MP reportedly told i News that Braverman’s reputation within the Tory Party was so dire that she has destroyed any chances of a successful leadership bid following Rishi Sunak’s announcement that he will stand down.

The MP even suggested that she may “cross the floor” of the House of Commons and join the right-wing populist Reform UK.

“She’s lost all her mates and p***ed off the gays,” the MP said. “So, I think she will bugger off to Reform. She has no chance of being leader and she thinks she is bigger than she is, so what is left for her?”

A former MP, who lost their seat in the general election, said they “wouldn’t be surprised” if Braverman choice to change allegiances.

Despite the outrage, Braverman has continued to voice anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, saying in a post on X/Twitter that “liberals” within the party are “having a meltdown.”

She went on to say: “Basic truths about are party are not easy to hear but I’ll keep telling them on behalf of the common sense, patriotic, Conservative majority.”

Braverman has found herself at loggerheads with another potential Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, who claimed her former fellow Cabinet minister had had a “very public nervous breakdown.”

Badenoch, the MP for North West Essex, attacked Braverman for making public attacks on the party during the election campaign. The former home secretary responded by writing on social media: “Kemi, and the rest of the Cabinet, should not have nodded along, as they and Rishi took the party to disaster.

“The refusal to take responsibility is at the root of our problem. It was not someone else’s fault.”