Suella Braverman, the ousted leader of the Conservative Party, expressed regret to the public on Friday for her party's performance over the past 14 years following her victory in the 2024 General Election. The official results indicated that the Labour Party had secured enough seats to achieve a majority in the UK Parliament, positioning them to form the next government with an estimated lead of approximately 160 seats in the House of Commons.
Despite Rishi Sunak, the UK's first Prime Minister of British Indian descent, comfortably retaining his Richmond and Northallerton seat in northern England with 23,059 votes, his party failed to reverse its fortunes nationally after a lengthy 14-year tenure in government.
Braverman, a UK-born barrister of Indian heritage with roots in Goa and Tamil Nadu, offered a sincere apology for her party's actions over the past decade and a half upon securing victory in the newly-established Fareham and Waterlooville constituency. "I want to address the election results across the nation briefly, and there's only one thing I can say... sorry. I’m sorry," she stated.
"The Great British people voted for us over 14 years and we did not keep our promises... we acted like we were entitled to your votes," BBC quoted the 44-year-old barrister as saying. "I'm sorry my party didn't listen to you," she said.
“We’ve acted as if we’re entitled to your vote regardless of what we did, regardless of what we didn’t do, despite promising time after time that we would do those things and we need to learn our lesson because if we don’t, bad as tonight has been for my party, we’ll have many worse nights to come."
“The country deserves better and we’ve got to do better and I will do everything in my power to rebuild trust. We need to listen to you – you have spoken to us very clearly."
Braverman had been engaged in a battle to reclaim her seat in Hampshire following alterations to electoral boundaries. Since 2015, she has represented the people of Fareham, progressively increasing the Conservative vote share in both the 2017 and 2019 elections.
Braverman was dismissed from her position as Home Secretary by Prime Minister Sunak in late 2023 after defying Downing Street regarding an article criticizing the Metropolitan Police's handling of pro-Palestine protests. She asserted that Sunak sacked her for speaking out against what she termed the “appeasement of Islamists”, but that she would do it again because she feared the country was sleep-walking into a “ghettoised society where free expression and British values are diluted”.
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