Suella Braverman has warned that the next general election will be the "most consequential" of her lifetime, insisting the choice for voters will be "very, very clear and very stark."
The former Conservative Cabinet minister, who defected to Reform UK earlier this year, said she is working "night and day" to put Nigel Farage in 10 Downing Street. She expressed fury at the "betrayal" of the Tories during their time in power and argued that Reform is the only way to stop another Labour government or a left-wing coalition that would lead to higher immigration and tax hikes.
Stark choice at the ballot box
Asked whether she is worried about a split in the right-wing vote, she told the Sunday Express: "Yes. And that's why I think that the next general election will be the most consequential in my lifetime. And the choice will be very, very clear and very stark.
"We can either have five more years of socialism, some kind of Green-Labour-Lib Dem coalition, which leads us into more poverty, more migration, more taxes. Or we can begin to turn the country around and lead us to begin the renewal of prosperity, of safety, security, sanity on our borders. The only vehicle that can stop socialism is Reform."
She is determined that Mr Farage will win the keys to No 10 next time the country goes to the ballot box. Speaking in Reform's skyscraper HQ, she said: "Listen, I'm working night and day to make it so. I think he'd be exactly the kind of Prime Minister that we need: courage, credibility, determination."
Attack on Burnham's Brexit and pension plans
Mrs Braverman hit out at Andy Burnham over his bid to drag Britain back to the European Union. The Prime Minister has hinted at a fresh referendum or even a pledge to rejoin without a vote in Labour's next manifesto, despite insisting he did not want to "re-run" the Brexit rows when campaigning to become the MP for Leave-backing Makerfield.
She said: "That is disingenuous. That shows a high level of contempt with which he holds the British people. It's not democratic. And it will be disastrous for the country. So, I think it shows his true colours, and Reform is the only party that can be relied upon to fight tooth and nail against it."
Mrs Braverman was one of the so-called "Spartans" - a group of 28 hardline Brexiteer Tory MPs who repeatedly voted against Theresa May's EU deal. She insists that the vote to leave the bloc was the right one, but admits that the promises of Brexit have not all been delivered. She said: "It's absolutely right for our national interest to be outside of the stagnating, bureaucratic, and illegitimate, frankly, EU. However, what cannot be denied is that the last Conservative government cocked it up. We need the right government that properly believes in it."
Mrs Braverman also condemned Mr Burnham's "indefensible assault on pensioners" after he announced plans to scrap the triple lock after the next election to pay for social care reforms. The policy sees the state pension rise each year by whichever is highest out of average earnings, inflation and 2.5%, but the PM is breaking the automatic link to wages.
She said: "Pensioners who have worked hard all their lives, saved their money, paid into the system, now will be targeted by a Labour Prime Minister. The triple lock has been a lifeline for millions of pensioners. Scrap that, and you really pull the carpet from under the feet of many, many pensioners who really do struggle to make ends meet. And these are people who have played by the rules, who have worked hard.
"There are so many other options that he could look at. He could look at out-of-work benefits, which have spiralled out of control under this government and also the last government. He could look at international aid. He could look at net zero levies. There are huge areas where government spending is out of control, but no, he's targeting pensioners because he thinks they're all cash cows. That is unfair and it is wrong."
Defection and new book
The former barrister described her decision to switch to Reform as "the best decision I've ever made in my life after marrying my husband." She said: "I felt politically homeless for a long time in the Conservative Party. I no longer trusted the Conservative Party because of its instinct for betrayal."
Mrs Braverman - who was sacked as home secretary by then-PM Rishi Sunak in a row about an article blasting police over pro-Palestine protests - lashed out at her former party over its failure to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to tackle the small boats crisis. She denied that the Tories have changed under new leader Kemi Badenoch, who she claimed "doesn't have the backbone."
She said: "The betrayals of the Conservative Party are unforgivable, whether it's on mass immigration, whether it's their cowardice on refusing to leave the ECHR. Whether it's their weakness on two-tier policing, on hate marches and antisemitism, on grooming gangs, on Islamism, we can't just sweep those betrayals under the carpet and pretend they never happened. They happened and they have caused major harm to the British people. The Conservative Party should never be forgiven for that. And so I don't think that they have earned the right to govern for a very, very long time."
The mother of two, whose parents came to Britain from Mauritius and Kenya in the 1960s, has penned a new book "for all of those patriots out there who feel a quiet but unmistakable terror that the country they love, that their parents and grandparents may have fought for, is disintegrating and slipping through their fingers."
She said: "I wrote it for those people who are frankly fed up with being smeared as far-right racists simply for wanting to celebrate our history, our culture, our identity, or even, dare I say, fly the national flag, which has now become an act of defiance more than something that we just do. And I wrote this book to say enough is enough. And no, we're not going to hide away our patriotism just because the lefty wokerati doesn't like it. In fact, this is a call to arms for all those patriots out there. Let's reassert our love of our country with pride."
Patriot: Empire, Betrayal, and Hope by Suella Braverman is out now.
