Warsi says the Tories can’t win a majority next year

Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, who resigned from government earlier in the week over their “morally indefensible” stance on Gaza, has said the Conservatives cannot win an outright majority next year because they have for too long ignored non-white voters.

Speaking to the Sunday Times (£), Lady Warsi explained that it is “too late” for the Conservatives to persuade non-white voters to support them at the next general election – and without these voters, she predicts that the party cannot win an outright majority in 2015.

In her first interview since she resigned from government, she implied that after supporting him in his bid for the party leadership in 2005, David Cameron had proved to be a disappointment:

“I looked at him and said, ‘This is a guy who gets today’s Britain. He’s a new kind of Conservative, comfortable with today’s Britain. I think the party has shifted since then. The party leadership has shifted since then. I think over time it will be a regressive move because we have to appeal to all of Britain, not just because it’s morally the right thing to do… but because it is an electoral reality.”

Lady Warsi went on to subtly attack the fact that a large  number of people in David Cameron’s inner circle went to private school. She explained that that although she didn’t  “hold the fact that someone went to public school against them” she implied that she had not always been met with the same understanding, saying “I am a brown, working-class woman from the north. People have been telling me I’m not good enough since the day I was born.”

She also reiterated her stance over Gaza, again offering open criticism of the government’s current stance on the ongoing conflict

“People like George Osborne and Michael Gove are very, very close to the Israeli government and the Israeli leadership. What is the point of having that strong relationship if you can’t use it to move them to a position which is in their interests and our interests.”

“My actions would not have been necessary if he [David Cameron] had done what he should have done, which is pick up the phone to people he is incredibly close to and say: ‘It’s unnecessary for you to meet your ends by taking out power stations, taking out homes, taking out schools and killing kids on beaches.’”