Kemi Badenoch has taken aim at businesses whose "main priority is social justice" during her Conservative Party leadership campaign speech.
The former equalities minister announced that she would be standing to become the next Tory Party leader after Boris Johnson announced his resignation last week.
And during a speech on Tuesday, Ms Badenoch said: "We have been in the grip of an underlying economic, social, cultural and intellectual malaise.
"The right has lost its confidence and its courage.
Kemi Badenoch
Pool
Ms Badenoch opened her campaign speech by saying “it’s time to tell the truth”
“Our ability to defend the free market as the fairest way of helping people prosper has been undermined.
“It has been undermined by a willingness to embrace protectionism, for special interest.
“It's been undermined by retreating in the face of the Ben and Jerry's tendency, those who say a business' main priority is social justice, not productivity and profits.
"And it's been undermined by the actions of crony capitalists, who collude with big bureaucracy to rig the system in favour of incumbents against entrepreneurs.”
Ms Badenoch opened her campaign speech by saying “it’s time to tell the truth”.
Addressing MPs and journalists at the launch in Westminster, the MP for Saffron Walden said: “It’s time to tell the truth.
“For too long politicians have been saying you can have it all – you can have your cake and eat it.
“But I’m here to tell you that’s not the case.
“Governing involves trade-offs and you need to be honest about that.”
Ms Badenoch said the public is “crying out for honesty” from the next prime minister, a quality she pledged to embody if chose
