Braverman Points Finger, but She Is Part of the Problem

In her first article since being sacked as home secretary, Suella Braverman argues that “there is no reason to criticise the judges” who ruled the ‘Rwanda Plan’ is unlawful. Instead, “the fault lies with the politicians who have failed to introduce legislation that would guarantee delivery of our Rwanda partnership.”

Perhaps in all the drama of recent days, Suella has forgotten that before Monday, she was one of those very politicians who have failed to introduce legislation.

She goes on to write that “now is not the time to waste energy on a post-mortem of how we got here.” In other words, let’s not consider the possibility that I am—or, to be fair, was—part of the problem.

After all, for social conservative and right-wing voters to view her as being a part of this mess would be damaging to Braverman’s blatant Tory leadership campaign. And it is clear, despite some claims to the contrary, that this is the focus of her current efforts, as proved by—among much else—her decision to “deliberately delay… publishing her letter to the prime minister for a day, carefully choosing her moment to maximise the impact.”

But one home office official has made it quite clear that, regardless of Rishi Sunak’s fairly undisputed weakness and promise-breaking, Braverman is not half the leader she presents herself as being.

The Conservative Party has long blamed left-wing civil servants for their inability to enact properly conservative legislation. But despite being aware of these likely difficulties, an insider of Braverman’s former department told The Daily Telegraph:

For all her strident bearing, Suella was cringingly apologetic in speeches to Home Office staff. Instead of instilling much needed discipline, she would tell us what a great job we were doing.

Indeed, in her allegedly “stinging,” “scathing” and “blistering” letter, Braverman actually “thank[ed] all of those civil servants … with whom I have worked and whose dedication to public safety is exemplary.” This after reports emerged of civil servants celebrating her forced departure, saying “We’re bloody happy.”

Perhaps, just as it took Suella years to work out that Britain’s police forces are generally left-wing and that the Tory party talks but does not act conservatively, the former home secretary just hasn’t yet realised how useless she was.