What the sacked UK home secretary Suella Braverman has done is nothing short of madness. For, no other minister of any government in living memory is known to have aired her or his views in a newspaper on the action of an agency of the government she or he is part of. Last week she penned an explosive newspaper article, apparently without Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s approval, accusing police of bias towards Left-wing causes. She blamed the police for stoking tensions ahead of a weekend of protests over Israel’s war in Gaza, which were accompanied by violence by Far-right counter-protestors. Her frequent controversial remarks climaxed with statements that exacerbated tensions at massive pro-Palestine demonstrations over the weekend.
Sunak had virtually no other option but to strip her of her portfolio as his popularity has already taken a dip. In fact, he seems to have been caught in a dilemma. If he retained her, he would have been considered to be a weak PM. Yet, by acting against her he has antagonized the most hardcore sections of his own party who look upon Braverman as their true representative with her incendiary Right-wing, racist and anti-migrant speeches. She has apparently been tapping on the sentiments of this segment of the Conservative Party supporters for the past few years with obvious prime ministerial ambition. Even when she was sacked, she boasted she had enjoyed the privilege of being the home secretary and indicated she had many more things to say. She does not seem to have any regrets for ignoring collective cabinet responsibility when she criticised the police action.
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But, there could be a method in her seeming madness. Analysts say she is only positioning herself as an active leadership challenger for Sunak. The current PM now faces potential unrest in the Conservative Party around the country where many ordinary members back Braverman’s Right-wing views on blocking immigration and tougher police action.
Braverman hogged the limelight in July 2022 when she announced her candidacy to succeed Boris Johnson. She immediately broke convention by refusing to resign as attorney general. This was an early indication of her scant respect for parliamentary convention, which is now so glaringly evident. Her candidacy was not, however, treated seriously and she was quickly eliminated from the contest, but the move launched her rapid elevation with her extreme anti-immigration and pro-law and order statements.
Earlier this year, Braverman attracted widespread criticism when she said floods of people who come to the UK across the Channel in small boats “possess values which are at odds with our country” and there were “heightened levels of criminality.”
Her successor, James Cleverly, on the other hand, has risen in prominence as foreign secretary in the past year. He has brought respect and rationality to the role after three predecessors generally regarded as failures – Liz Truss, Dominic Raab and Boris Johnson. That left a vacancy as foreign secretary which gave an opportunity to Sunak to spring a surprise on both his own party and the world. He has made the former somewhat discredited Prime Minister David Cameron his new foreign secretary. Cameron led Britain to its current Brexit existence outside the European Union by calling a referendum in 2016 that he believed would be in favour of remaining in Europe. He resigned in 2016 on the day the Brexit referendum result was announced and has been in the political wilderness since.
Cameron’s reputation has been tarnished by the lobbying he carried out for Greensill Capital, a scandal-hit financial services company that collapsed in 2021. His “significant lack of judgment” was criticised by a Treasury Committee. The reason Sunak has given him the job could be Cameron’s stature in international politics. He may bring respectability to UK policies in foreign capitals and multi-national organisations.
For India, the appointment brings good news as Cameron had tried as PM to strengthen two-way trade and investment. He made three visits to India in that role and hosted Narendra Modi in London in 2015.
The entire exercise sounds like Sunak’s desperate remedy for an extreme situation. As he faces the electorate soon with his party’s popularity rating going down, the cabinet reshuffle is intended to refurbish his image.
