LONDON, Nov 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has sacked Suella Braverman as UK home secretary after she was blamed for inflaming tensions over Armistice Day protests and saying police favoured leftwing protesters.
A government source told the Guardian: “Rishi Sunak has asked Suella Braverman to leave government and she has accepted.”
Her dismissal is set to form part of a wider reshuffle of Sunak’s team, with Thérèse Coffey, the environment secretary, and Steve Barclay, the health secretary, believed to be also likely to go.
Two junior ministers, the schools minister Nick Gibb and the health minister Neil O’Brien, announced they were stepping down from their roles.
James Cleverly was seen entering Downing Street shortly after Braverman was sacked, with the foreign secretary among those seen as potentially replacing her. While Jeremy Hunt has been tipped to be moved as chancellor, this is seen as less imminent given this month’s autumn statement.
After being sacked, Braverman said “it has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary”, adding: “I will have more to say in due course.”
Braverman’s dismissal follows weeks of controversy in which she increasingly seemed to be following her own hard-right policy agenda, with a series of controversial statements, including a much-criticised description of homelessness as a “lifestyle choice”.
It is nonetheless expected to prompt anger among Conservative MPs on the right of the party. One of these, Andrea Jenkyns, tweeted: “I support @SuellaBraverman. Sacked for speaking the truth. Bad call by Rishi caving in to the left!”
It is the second time Braverman has been forced out of the same job in little more than a year. Liz Truss ordered her to resign in October last year after only weeks in the job, for sending confidential information to an MP from a private email address.
The direct trigger for the sacking was an unauthorised article for last Thursday’s Times, in which Braverman claimed there was “a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters” and were tougher on rightwing extremists than pro-Palestinian “mobs”.
The article also likened demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza to marches in Northern Ireland, which are mainly done by unionists.
The article was submitted to Downing Street, as is required for such pieces by ministers, and No 10 had sought substantial edits, but not all of these were made.
Braverman was blamed by police and Labour for helping inflame tensions resulting in far-right groups battling police near the Cenotaph on Saturday.
Some officers told the Guardian Braverman’s claims of bias were a significant factor in “sustained” far-right attacks on members of the force.
On Sunday, in her first public pronouncement since the violence, Braverman made no comment on claims her rhetoric had inflamed tensions, instead demanding “further action” against pro-Palestine marches.
Bringing Braverman back as home secretary six days after she was sacked by Truss was a controversial move by Sunak, but seen as payback both for her backing him over Boris Johnson to replace Truss, and also to keep the right of the party happy.
While a key minister given her role in trying to deliver Sunak’s pledge to stop small boat crossings over the Channel, Braverman become involved in a series of rows, often irritating No 10 with her comments.
Most recently these included repeatedly labelling demonstrations calling for a Gaza ceasefire as “hate marches”, and floating the idea of banning charities from giving tents to homeless people, saying they were “occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice”.
She angered others by referring to the arrival of asylum seekers in small boats from across the Channel as “the invasion on our southern coast”.
At October’s Conservative conference, Braverman made a notably populist speech attacking the “luxury beliefs” of liberal-leaning people, and prompted a Tory London assembly member to heckle her for making his party look “transphobic”.
In other rows, she was accused of racism for singling out British Pakistani men as supposedly being responsible for the vast majority of so-called grooming gangs, and was contradicted by Essex police after her team briefed a newspaper that she had reprimanded the force for seizing racist golly dolls from a pub. — NNN-AGENCIES
