The Left should stop being "embarrassed" about the UK's colonial past, James Cleverly, one of the front runners to replace Rishi Sunak has said.
Cleverly - the third favourite to replace Sunak - said he found it "baffling and counterproductive" that leftwing politicians and activists appeared "to hate" their own country.
Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone, said that the fact that the Tories promoted politicians from ethnic minority backgrounds to top jobs was "a direct repercussion of Britain's imperial past".
Speaking to Chopper's Political podcast, Cleverly said: "Progressives say how proud they were of the UK that we had a Prime Minister of Indian Heritage and a Home secretary of African Heritage, a trade secretary of African Heritage, a former Home secretary that was Muslim - that is a direct repercussion of Britain's imperial past.
Cleverly, whose mother is from Sierra Leone, said that the fact that the Tories promoted politicians from ethnic minority backgrounds to top jobs was "a direct repercussion of Britain's imperial past"
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"That would not have happened had the British Empire not existed.
"So you cannot in good conscience be proud of the ethnic diversity at the top of the British establishment for one of a better word, without also recognising that this country's amazing history was instrumental in delivering that."
Asked why the UK's involvement in ending the slave trade is so often overlooked by the Left, he replied: "Because some people are embarrassed by their own history. I was the Foreign Secretary.
"I was the face and voice on the international stage, and I was always immensely proud to be the official representative of the UK of this country...
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Cleverly is the third favourite to replace Sunak in the Tory leadership contest
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"And I find it both baffling and frustrating, this kind of lazy trope that the Left deploy all the time, which is always to hate your own country.
"And I don't I don't get it. It's deeply counterproductive."
Listen to James Cleverly's interview on Chopper's Political Podcast on Spotify or Apple podcasts, or watch it on GB News' YouTube channel.
