Former Home Secretary Priti Patel has blamed “those in power and control” of the Conservative Party for their heavy local election losses in a speech.
Ms Patel said she was sorry that it was “errors and mistakes sometimes of us in Westminster and our actions that have cost our party dearly”.
She was among several high-profile Tory MPs who spoke to the Conservative Democratic Organisation, a new grassroots pro-Boris Johnson group.
The Tory Party said it had no comment.
She told the group’s conference in Bournemouth: “Some parts of Westminster and our colleagues have done a better job of damaging our party than the opposition, the left wing campaign groups, the civil service, which we all struggle with day in day out and even I’m afraid, some of those in the media that want to distort and make life difficult for us”.
The Conservative MP for Witham suggested that if government leaders spent more time with the grassroots of the party “they would be more in touch with the people and…
This article was written by and originally published on www.bbc.co.uk