Suella Braverman’s time as home secretary is up. Her sacking this morning is being followed by a wider cabinet reshuffle which has already seen the return of former prime minister and Tony Blair-inspired liberal David Cameron.
The exact reason for Braverman’s departure is not yet known, but it appears that Rishi Sunak has simply become fed up with the now-former minister’s purposefully controversial statements.
Ahead of the weekend’s planned pro-Palestine protests, she wrote an article in The Times criticising London’s Metropolitan Police officers for “largely ignor[ing]” law-breaking pro-Palestine “mobs,” suggesting that they “play favourites when it comes to protesters.” The piece was not signed off by the PM and has since been blamed, by, among others, London mayor Sadiq Khan and First Minister of Scotland Humza Yusaf, for “fueling far-right violence” in the capital.
The Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens wrote Braverman’s posturing off as the “picking [of] self-promoting fights,” adding: “I have to ask what she has been doing, reading and thinking for the past quarter of a century” if she is only just waking up to the police’s left-wing bent.
Braverman also drew criticism this month when she suggested that many homeless people see rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice.” This caused rows within the Tory party but again appears from the outside simply as an attempt to look tough—much like her ramped-up rhetoric on immigration, in the face of continued effective inaction.
Commentary on Braverman’s sacking and news on the wider reshuffle will follow.
