The former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Jonathan Gullis has joined a growing list of MPs and former MPs who are supporting Priti Patel as the next leader of the Conservative Party.
Speaking on GB News, Jonathan Gullis said:
“I’ll be backing Priti Patel to become the leader of the Conservative Party, because for me, what we need is someone who has experience. Priti served in William Hague’s private office after that crushing defeat in 1997, she’s held great offices of State under Cameron, May and Johnson.
“She was not part of the Liz Truss nor the Rishi Sunak government, so she’s been principled.
“She was one of the stalwarts of Brexit, one of those who stuck their neck on the line and rebelled against things like the Windsor framework as well, so stayed true to her principles and values.
“But whilst doing that, [she] also remained loyal to the Conservative Party, and wasn’t trawling the airwaves, wasn’t writing articles that would have been unhelpful to the party brand.
“For those reasons, I think she’s got the experience and the ability to bring the broad church of the Conservative Party together whilst having a very clear offer to the electorate.
“The Conservatives need to return to the party of family, party of low tax, the party of tough borders.
“[growth in immigration numbers] is certainly a question that Priti is going to have to answer and of course, there are caveats. We had refugee schemes, for example, the Ukrainians as well as Hong Kongers, which would have obviously impacted the numbers.
“But I think actually what Priti has always been very fair in saying is that no longer can any politician blame anyone else. Ultimately taking back control, as we did when we delivered Brexit in 2020, means that it is up to politicians to make the decisions about what they want to see.
“Therefore she would not dodge, but was not able to, having not continued in her role, to implement further changes in order to bring down legal migration numbers, where it was clear and obvious that there were either abuses of the system or indeed that the system just simply wasn’t working in the interests of the British public.
“And I think that the problem we’ve got now is we’ve got far too many unelected bureaucratic quangos and other types who are essentially making decisions and imposing them upon ministers.
“I know Priti wants to certainly rip that up and go back to a day where ministers are held accountable for the decisions that are made and are the people who make them as well.”
