Suella Braverman spent most of Thursday at the hospital bedside of a close relative.
The Home Secretary was largely disconnected from the world as the drama she had ignited the evening before played out in spectacular public style.
It had begun while Rishi Sunak was celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of light that is traditionally marked with lavish firework displays.
At 10.30pm, phones pinged across Downing Street when The Times published an article by Mrs Braverman in which she attacked the Metropolitan Police’s handling of pro-Palestinian marches and accused the force of “playing favourites” with protesters.
The column sparked instant shock within the corridors of power. While the Prime Minister and his team were aware that Mrs Braverman was writing a piece for the newspaper, the final version was far more incendiary than what had been agreed with the Home Office.
Less than 40 minutes later, with officials in Downing Street still reeling and unsure what had happened, figures close to the Home Secretary began to brief broadcasters that the opinion piece had been “seen” by No 10 prior to publication.
Meanwhile, hostile reaction was already beginning to pour in from Tory MPs, in particular over a part of the article in which Mrs Braverman compared the pro-Palestinian demonstration of the last few weeks to marches that had taken place in Northern Ireland.
As it became increasingly clear that something was amiss, the No 10 press team began to field questions from reporters about whether they had signed off on the piece.
Mr Sunak and his team went to bed that night knowing a major row was brewing and that their holding line to the media – that they could not comment on “internal processes” – would not hold water for long.
**‘Goading’ PM into forcing her out**
By the morning, renewed Tory anger was brewing and what followed was an extraordinary series of claims and counter-claims between No 10 and the Home Office.
Originally, the Home Office said No 10 had seen the piece, implying that it had been signed off by Mr Sunak. Then No 10 sources told journalists that was misleading.
The Home Office then admitted that No 10 had submitted changes and it had only incorporated some of them. More No 10 insiders insisted it had not signed off on the piece and the alterations that had been ignored were “not minor”.
Close allies of Mr Sunak accused Team Braverman of lying over its briefings that implied that Downing Street’s edits had been incorporated into the final version.
But supporters of the Home Secretary dismissed the uproar as grumbles over process and insisted that the public was on her side – both in terms of her assessment of the protests as “hate marches” and her criticism of the police response.
One wing of the party, including moderates and supporters of Mr Sunak, was left so incandescent at the tone of the article that they began to push for her to be sacked.
A former cabinet minister said she should be given the boot “because she is incompetent”, while another claimed she was “goading” the Prime Minister into forcing her out.
The anger stretched all the way up to the top table. One cabinet minister told the Telegraph: “She’s lost it,” and claimed Mrs Braverman “severely embarrassed the prime minister”.
**Remarks were ‘highly regrettable’**
Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary and a Sunak loyalist, was the luckless minister sent out on the broadcast media round to field questions about the article. It was telling that he distanced himself from the remarks, suggesting they were not government policy. Senior police figures were also starting to weigh in with concerns that, in writing the piece, the Home Secretary was trying to railroad the Met into taking a tougher approach to Saturday’s planned pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day.
Sir Tom Windsor, a former HM chief inspector of constabulary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her remarks were “contrary to the spirit of the ancient constitutional settlement with the police” and that her remarks were “highly regrettable”.
Meanwhile Chris Philp, the policing minister at the Home Office, was dragged to the Dispatch Box by Labour, where he stressed the operational independence of the police but insisted he had no knowledge of how the article had come about.
As he was bombarded with hostile questions by the opposition benches it was notable that only two Tory MPs – former Cabinet ministers Sir Michael Ellis and Theresa Villiers – stood up to make speeches that were supportive of Mrs Braverman.
Up until this point, No 10 had maintained an almost monk-like silence as the debate raged all around. But at 11.30am, as the press room next door at No 9 filled with journalists arriving for the daily lobby briefing, it could dodge the issue no longer.
“Does the Prime Minister still have confidence in the Home Secretary?” was the first question fired at Mr Sunak’s official spokesman.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Was the article signed off by Downing Street?” swiftly followed. It was “not cleared by No 10”, he said.
He added that officials would be “looking into what happened” and batted away repeated questions about whether Mrs Braverman would be investigated for having potentially breached the ministerial code by publishing the unauthorised column.
By now Simon Hart, the Chief Whip, had been inundated with calls and messages from Tory MPs who were furious about the piece. Those expressing their rage included more mild-mannered figures who were described as “not the usual suspects”.
In an attempt to get on top of the situation, his team also began reaching out to backbenchers asking them what they thought about Mrs Braverman. But the internal ruckus was already spilling out into very public view as Tory MPs clearly divided into two camps on the airwaves and on social media.
**‘Forces in party out to get her sacked’**
There was no better illustration of the split running right down the middle of the party when one of its deputy vice-chairmen backed the Home Secretary, while the other came out and heavily criticised her remarks.
Lee Anderson told the Daily Express that she was “only saying what most people are thinking” and that “anyone who thinks her comments are outrageous need to get out more”.
A matter of minutes later Nickie Aiken popped up in The Guardian suggesting that Mrs Braverman had set “a very dangerous precedent” by trying to interfere with the operational independence of the police.
Mr Sunak was confronted with evidence that the Home Secretary’s use of language had, once again, opened up the wounds running through the party that have never healed despite the relative calm of his premiership after six tumultuous years.
One Conservative MP told the Telegraph that Mrs Braveran’s presence in the Cabinet was “the only thing stopping the Right from going into open revolt” and that there it was “very clear there are forces in the party out to get her sacked”.
At the very same time Sir Bob Neill, a prominent moderate backbencher, went on Times Radio to warn that she had “got it badly wrong” and that if there was violence at this Saturday’s march, her position would become “untenable”.
Labour also spotted an unmissable opportunity to avert the public gaze from its own very internal problems over Gaza, pumping out an attack ad on social media that branded Mr Sunak “spineless” for failing to sack his “out of control” Home Secretary.
Sir Keir Starmer, who was visiting the Express & Star newspaper in Wolverhampton, made headlines himself by telling broadcasters that the Prime Minister must give her the boot.
He accused Mrs Braverman of “stoking up tension at the very time we should be trying to reduce tension” and said she was “doing the complete opposite of what I think most people in this country would see as the proper role of the Home Secretary”.
After one of the most bruising days of Mr Sunak’s premiership in which he had not spoken to Mrs Braverman, she remained in post. But with rumours of an imminent reshuffle many Tories believe she cannot last much longer.
I don’t think Sunak has any love lost for Braverman so it’s wild that he has turned out to be her staunchest defender.
She simply has to go. She is an awful person.
Of course she won’t be sacked. Sunak is weaker than a wet lettuce.
> A former cabinet minister said she should be given the boot “because she is incompetent”
Oh please, this ceased to be a barrier to a cabinet position by Grayling’s 2nd appointment
I really hope she holds on a lot longer. She needs more time to divide the party, create long lasting feuds and to highlight to the population what Tories really stand for
Watching the blues tear themselves apart would be quite fantastically entertaining if it wasn’t so bad for the actual people of this country.
Whilst I’m an *anybody but Tory* it is possible to recognise that there is a somewhat more reasonable moderate wing of the party which is totally and utterly incompatible with the sheer lunatic fringe on the opposite end of their broad church including bellends like Braverman and Anderson. This kind of thing is going to keep happening because the two sides cannot reconcile with each other and the only type of leader who can even temporarily keep this rabble together must be a pathological liar who has no creed of his/her own (e.g. Bojo the Clown).
Our utterly wretched electoral system ensures that they can’t even go their own separate ways and form two distinct parties as that way lies electoral oblivion forever.
How did she get ‘bedside’? Suella must one of the few people in UK to have relatives admitted an NHS hospital within recommended wait times
It does seem she’s challenging the leadership to sack her. Hopefully in the long run to become party leader. I’m trying to not imagine a Trump / Sunak USA/UK leadership. How many clowns in the UK would vote for her though?
How weak is Sunak? He’s just been dominated and outwitted by the thickest home secretary we’ve ever seen.
Fire her – she gets to leave the ship before it sinks and then challenges for the leadership after they lose the next election to a labour landslide. This makes Sunak look strong but possibly causes a major rebellion from the right which might actually precipitate that election.
Let her stay on – he makes it clear that he’s not in control of his cabinet and she can say and do whatever the fuck she wants with impunity. She will definitely go on causing trouble and running the home office as if it’s her own personal leadership campaigning team.
Either way, Braverman is further damaging Tory chances at the next election, and if she ends up as leader afterwards she’ll just be leading them further into the wilderness. What a shit show! I continue to find it amazing that, from a population of almost 60 million, these are the sort of characters who end up rising to the top.
I still find it mad that she’s trying to appeal to the very crowd that will never accept her.
She’s gutted…
I expect yet another outrageous comment soon to insure she gets fired and starts her preparation for a leadership bid.
She wants to be sacked as a way to slingshot her leadership career. It’s why she is running around undermining Sunak at every opportunity and breaching ministerial code constantly.
She has the balls to say what she thinks, unlike the rest of those two-faced dipshits who cower in the shadows. Grow a pair, you’re supposed to be the Conservatives, instead you’re Labour-lite
Love her to bits.
Put simply, the longer Braverman stays, the better it is for Labour.
Thank you so very much Suella la cruella👍
Plot twist, none of the Tories can last much longer.
She is defining the ‘Nasty Party’ (there may be a spelling mistake in that comment). She seems to be only slightly to the left of Genghis Khan with her politics and that may be a little extreme for the more convervative (small C) members in the Tories. Sunak should have sacked her by now for being such a loose cannon and rule breaker, but he’s so weak that he’s a fortnight. Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the ERG loonies are running the asylum.
I don’t agree with everything she says but she’s actually doing something.
More than can be said for the past home secretaries in recent years
This is all just theatre.
She wants the sack, and the party is playing along, so that she can make her own leadership run when they inevitably lose the next election.
They’re playing us all like a fiddle.
Ugly rat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a uglier person.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Maybe she shouldn’t have been evil? Evil usually doesn’t wash with the electorate
Don’t think she wants to does she? Personally I think she wants to be fired or leave so when sunak loses at the polls she can say it cause he wasn’t tough enough.
Exasperating but also a ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ situation for sunak
IMHO the best thing Sunak can do is a cabinet reshuffle. Keep Braverman at arms length, move her over to a department where her right wing rhetoric has no relevance, agriculture for example.
Why can’t we just throw the whole garbage lot of them out now?
Time for a General Election already.
>but many Tories say she cannot last much longer
Neither can the rest of them.
The rot is deep and widespread.
Don’t understand why the liberal left dislike her so much.
She oversees the largest numbers of immigration (both legal and illegal) in UK history, and defunds the police.
I would’ve thought those policies really chimed with them.
Who cares about her whinging rhetoric that people seems offended people – it’s hot air.
It’s the evidence and her track record that count, which is pretty liberal on paper.
She’s the ONLY actual conservative remaining in the conservative party.
She’s the only one who points out the UK is currently being invaded by illegals.
Good on her for calling out the bias everyone can see in the MET.
Sacked for telling the truth, we’ve been too soft for too long.
>Lee Anderson told the Daily Express that she was “only saying what most people are thinking” and that “anyone who thinks her comments are outrageous need to get out more”.
Lee Anderson and the Daily Express, a truly iconic pairing.
One truly astonishing thing about Braverman is that in a party of vile, immoral, corrupt, dishonest scumbags, she is able to stand out for being even more heinous than the rest
How the fuck is the government of the United Kingdom. What a fucking embarrassment we’ve become.
Those who burn brightest last only half as long. That’s how the saying goes. Truss went. And now Suella must go.
It’s a spectrum of cuntishness in the parliamentary conservative party, but Suella sits right off the scale fully in chinless Hitler territory
We’ve been saying that about the government for years…
36 comments
(Article)
—
Suella Braverman spent most of Thursday at the hospital bedside of a close relative.
The Home Secretary was largely disconnected from the world as the drama she had ignited the evening before played out in spectacular public style.
It had begun while Rishi Sunak was celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of light that is traditionally marked with lavish firework displays.
At 10.30pm, phones pinged across Downing Street when The Times published an article by Mrs Braverman in which she attacked the Metropolitan Police’s handling of pro-Palestinian marches and accused the force of “playing favourites” with protesters.
The column sparked instant shock within the corridors of power. While the Prime Minister and his team were aware that Mrs Braverman was writing a piece for the newspaper, the final version was far more incendiary than what had been agreed with the Home Office.
Less than 40 minutes later, with officials in Downing Street still reeling and unsure what had happened, figures close to the Home Secretary began to brief broadcasters that the opinion piece had been “seen” by No 10 prior to publication.
Meanwhile, hostile reaction was already beginning to pour in from Tory MPs, in particular over a part of the article in which Mrs Braverman compared the pro-Palestinian demonstration of the last few weeks to marches that had taken place in Northern Ireland.
As it became increasingly clear that something was amiss, the No 10 press team began to field questions from reporters about whether they had signed off on the piece.
Mr Sunak and his team went to bed that night knowing a major row was brewing and that their holding line to the media – that they could not comment on “internal processes” – would not hold water for long.
**‘Goading’ PM into forcing her out**
By the morning, renewed Tory anger was brewing and what followed was an extraordinary series of claims and counter-claims between No 10 and the Home Office.
Originally, the Home Office said No 10 had seen the piece, implying that it had been signed off by Mr Sunak. Then No 10 sources told journalists that was misleading.
The Home Office then admitted that No 10 had submitted changes and it had only incorporated some of them. More No 10 insiders insisted it had not signed off on the piece and the alterations that had been ignored were “not minor”.
Close allies of Mr Sunak accused Team Braverman of lying over its briefings that implied that Downing Street’s edits had been incorporated into the final version.
But supporters of the Home Secretary dismissed the uproar as grumbles over process and insisted that the public was on her side – both in terms of her assessment of the protests as “hate marches” and her criticism of the police response.
One wing of the party, including moderates and supporters of Mr Sunak, was left so incandescent at the tone of the article that they began to push for her to be sacked.
A former cabinet minister said she should be given the boot “because she is incompetent”, while another claimed she was “goading” the Prime Minister into forcing her out.
The anger stretched all the way up to the top table. One cabinet minister told the Telegraph: “She’s lost it,” and claimed Mrs Braverman “severely embarrassed the prime minister”.
**Remarks were ‘highly regrettable’**
Mark Harper, the Transport Secretary and a Sunak loyalist, was the luckless minister sent out on the broadcast media round to field questions about the article. It was telling that he distanced himself from the remarks, suggesting they were not government policy. Senior police figures were also starting to weigh in with concerns that, in writing the piece, the Home Secretary was trying to railroad the Met into taking a tougher approach to Saturday’s planned pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day.
Sir Tom Windsor, a former HM chief inspector of constabulary, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that her remarks were “contrary to the spirit of the ancient constitutional settlement with the police” and that her remarks were “highly regrettable”.
Meanwhile Chris Philp, the policing minister at the Home Office, was dragged to the Dispatch Box by Labour, where he stressed the operational independence of the police but insisted he had no knowledge of how the article had come about.
As he was bombarded with hostile questions by the opposition benches it was notable that only two Tory MPs – former Cabinet ministers Sir Michael Ellis and Theresa Villiers – stood up to make speeches that were supportive of Mrs Braverman.
Up until this point, No 10 had maintained an almost monk-like silence as the debate raged all around. But at 11.30am, as the press room next door at No 9 filled with journalists arriving for the daily lobby briefing, it could dodge the issue no longer.
“Does the Prime Minister still have confidence in the Home Secretary?” was the first question fired at Mr Sunak’s official spokesman.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Was the article signed off by Downing Street?” swiftly followed. It was “not cleared by No 10”, he said.
He added that officials would be “looking into what happened” and batted away repeated questions about whether Mrs Braverman would be investigated for having potentially breached the ministerial code by publishing the unauthorised column.
By now Simon Hart, the Chief Whip, had been inundated with calls and messages from Tory MPs who were furious about the piece. Those expressing their rage included more mild-mannered figures who were described as “not the usual suspects”.
In an attempt to get on top of the situation, his team also began reaching out to backbenchers asking them what they thought about Mrs Braverman. But the internal ruckus was already spilling out into very public view as Tory MPs clearly divided into two camps on the airwaves and on social media.
**‘Forces in party out to get her sacked’**
There was no better illustration of the split running right down the middle of the party when one of its deputy vice-chairmen backed the Home Secretary, while the other came out and heavily criticised her remarks.
Lee Anderson told the Daily Express that she was “only saying what most people are thinking” and that “anyone who thinks her comments are outrageous need to get out more”.
A matter of minutes later Nickie Aiken popped up in The Guardian suggesting that Mrs Braverman had set “a very dangerous precedent” by trying to interfere with the operational independence of the police.
Mr Sunak was confronted with evidence that the Home Secretary’s use of language had, once again, opened up the wounds running through the party that have never healed despite the relative calm of his premiership after six tumultuous years.
One Conservative MP told the Telegraph that Mrs Braveran’s presence in the Cabinet was “the only thing stopping the Right from going into open revolt” and that there it was “very clear there are forces in the party out to get her sacked”.
At the very same time Sir Bob Neill, a prominent moderate backbencher, went on Times Radio to warn that she had “got it badly wrong” and that if there was violence at this Saturday’s march, her position would become “untenable”.
Labour also spotted an unmissable opportunity to avert the public gaze from its own very internal problems over Gaza, pumping out an attack ad on social media that branded Mr Sunak “spineless” for failing to sack his “out of control” Home Secretary.
Sir Keir Starmer, who was visiting the Express & Star newspaper in Wolverhampton, made headlines himself by telling broadcasters that the Prime Minister must give her the boot.
He accused Mrs Braverman of “stoking up tension at the very time we should be trying to reduce tension” and said she was “doing the complete opposite of what I think most people in this country would see as the proper role of the Home Secretary”.
After one of the most bruising days of Mr Sunak’s premiership in which he had not spoken to Mrs Braverman, she remained in post. But with rumours of an imminent reshuffle many Tories believe she cannot last much longer.
I don’t think Sunak has any love lost for Braverman so it’s wild that he has turned out to be her staunchest defender.
She simply has to go. She is an awful person.
Of course she won’t be sacked. Sunak is weaker than a wet lettuce.
> A former cabinet minister said she should be given the boot “because she is incompetent”
Oh please, this ceased to be a barrier to a cabinet position by Grayling’s 2nd appointment
I really hope she holds on a lot longer. She needs more time to divide the party, create long lasting feuds and to highlight to the population what Tories really stand for
Watching the blues tear themselves apart would be quite fantastically entertaining if it wasn’t so bad for the actual people of this country.
Whilst I’m an *anybody but Tory* it is possible to recognise that there is a somewhat more reasonable moderate wing of the party which is totally and utterly incompatible with the sheer lunatic fringe on the opposite end of their broad church including bellends like Braverman and Anderson. This kind of thing is going to keep happening because the two sides cannot reconcile with each other and the only type of leader who can even temporarily keep this rabble together must be a pathological liar who has no creed of his/her own (e.g. Bojo the Clown).
Our utterly wretched electoral system ensures that they can’t even go their own separate ways and form two distinct parties as that way lies electoral oblivion forever.
How did she get ‘bedside’? Suella must one of the few people in UK to have relatives admitted an NHS hospital within recommended wait times
It does seem she’s challenging the leadership to sack her. Hopefully in the long run to become party leader. I’m trying to not imagine a Trump / Sunak USA/UK leadership. How many clowns in the UK would vote for her though?
How weak is Sunak? He’s just been dominated and outwitted by the thickest home secretary we’ve ever seen.
Fire her – she gets to leave the ship before it sinks and then challenges for the leadership after they lose the next election to a labour landslide. This makes Sunak look strong but possibly causes a major rebellion from the right which might actually precipitate that election.
Let her stay on – he makes it clear that he’s not in control of his cabinet and she can say and do whatever the fuck she wants with impunity. She will definitely go on causing trouble and running the home office as if it’s her own personal leadership campaigning team.
Either way, Braverman is further damaging Tory chances at the next election, and if she ends up as leader afterwards she’ll just be leading them further into the wilderness. What a shit show! I continue to find it amazing that, from a population of almost 60 million, these are the sort of characters who end up rising to the top.
I still find it mad that she’s trying to appeal to the very crowd that will never accept her.
She’s gutted…
I expect yet another outrageous comment soon to insure she gets fired and starts her preparation for a leadership bid.
She wants to be sacked as a way to slingshot her leadership career. It’s why she is running around undermining Sunak at every opportunity and breaching ministerial code constantly.
She has the balls to say what she thinks, unlike the rest of those two-faced dipshits who cower in the shadows. Grow a pair, you’re supposed to be the Conservatives, instead you’re Labour-lite
Love her to bits.
Put simply, the longer Braverman stays, the better it is for Labour.
Thank you so very much Suella la cruella👍
Plot twist, none of the Tories can last much longer.
She is defining the ‘Nasty Party’ (there may be a spelling mistake in that comment). She seems to be only slightly to the left of Genghis Khan with her politics and that may be a little extreme for the more convervative (small C) members in the Tories. Sunak should have sacked her by now for being such a loose cannon and rule breaker, but he’s so weak that he’s a fortnight. Steve Baker, Jacob Rees-Mogg and the ERG loonies are running the asylum.
I don’t agree with everything she says but she’s actually doing something.
More than can be said for the past home secretaries in recent years
This is all just theatre.
She wants the sack, and the party is playing along, so that she can make her own leadership run when they inevitably lose the next election.
They’re playing us all like a fiddle.
Ugly rat. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a uglier person.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Maybe she shouldn’t have been evil? Evil usually doesn’t wash with the electorate
Don’t think she wants to does she? Personally I think she wants to be fired or leave so when sunak loses at the polls she can say it cause he wasn’t tough enough.
Exasperating but also a ‘between the devil and the deep blue sea’ situation for sunak
IMHO the best thing Sunak can do is a cabinet reshuffle. Keep Braverman at arms length, move her over to a department where her right wing rhetoric has no relevance, agriculture for example.
She’s trying to get sacked before this ruling.
[UK supreme court to rule on legality of plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda](https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/09/uk-supreme-court-to-rule-whether-plan-to-send-asylum-seekers-to-rwanda-is-lawful)
I’d bet the house on it.
Why can’t we just throw the whole garbage lot of them out now?
Time for a General Election already.
>but many Tories say she cannot last much longer
Neither can the rest of them.
The rot is deep and widespread.
Don’t understand why the liberal left dislike her so much.
She oversees the largest numbers of immigration (both legal and illegal) in UK history, and defunds the police.
I would’ve thought those policies really chimed with them.
Who cares about her whinging rhetoric that people seems offended people – it’s hot air.
It’s the evidence and her track record that count, which is pretty liberal on paper.
She’s the ONLY actual conservative remaining in the conservative party.
She’s the only one who points out the UK is currently being invaded by illegals.
Good on her for calling out the bias everyone can see in the MET.
Sacked for telling the truth, we’ve been too soft for too long.
>Lee Anderson told the Daily Express that she was “only saying what most people are thinking” and that “anyone who thinks her comments are outrageous need to get out more”.
Lee Anderson and the Daily Express, a truly iconic pairing.
One truly astonishing thing about Braverman is that in a party of vile, immoral, corrupt, dishonest scumbags, she is able to stand out for being even more heinous than the rest
How the fuck is the government of the United Kingdom. What a fucking embarrassment we’ve become.
Those who burn brightest last only half as long. That’s how the saying goes. Truss went. And now Suella must go.
It’s a spectrum of cuntishness in the parliamentary conservative party, but Suella sits right off the scale fully in chinless Hitler territory
We’ve been saying that about the government for years…