WE LOST THE TRUST OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, SAYS FORMER TORY MINISTER

THE Conservative Party has “lost the trust and support of millions of people”, according to former Treasury Minister Gareth Davies MP.

He also said that he was confident that the Tories could recover and regain the backing of people who have gone over to other parties.

Davies told GB News: “It was an incredibly difficult election for my party, we lost the support and trust of millions of people across the country in different parts of the country, to different parties, not just one party.

“We now need to reflect on that with humility and to decide how we best go forward to rebuild that trust, win back those millions of voters that left us and have a leader in place who can unite our party, and that’s for the 1922 committee to set out the details of in due course.

“Just on Reform specifically, clearly we did lose supporters to that party but that is a party that has enabled this Labour government to have a very big majority to enable them to increase taxes and to increase immigration, which is I don’t think what most of those people want.

“I’m confident we can win back the trust of those people that left us but we need to unite to be able to do that.”

He added: “The first thing to say is that we are a broad church, we always have been a broad church, but we should draw strength from every part.

“That’s what I will be looking forward to in a leadership candidate, somebody who can unite the party to draw strength from every part of the party, but not just focus on policies. Our values are the values of the British public.

“I want a party that puts forward a way in which we can push people up who want to succeed, not pull them down when they do succeed. That’s what conservatism is all about…”

Asked who he would support as the new leader, he said: “I will obviously make a decision in due course, when it’s clearer and we’ve heard from everybody that’s put themselves forward.

“You’re not hopefully going to expect me to announce any endorsement this morning because nobody’s announced that they’re running yet.

“We’ll just have to wait and see but it is important that we take our time to get this right. As I say we’ve got to rebuild the trust. We’ve got to win back the millions of people that have left us.”