When Suella Braverman was sacked by Rishi Sunak yesterday morning, she promised to say more in ‘due course’. Well, just over 24 hours later, that time has come. This afternoon, the former home secretary has shared on social media a scathing resignation letter in which she suggests the Prime Minister needs to ‘change course urgently’. She wrote: ‘Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time.’
While Braverman devotes a paragraph to praising the work she did with Sunak, the bulk of the three-page letter is focused on criticising the PM. She says that she was willing to look over the fact he had no personal mandate from the Tory membership because of ‘firm assurances you gave me on key policy priorities’ including reducing legal migration, stopping the boats and non-statutory guidance to schools protecting biological sex. She says there have been failures to deliver in these areas, and that her letters to Sunak and his team have often been ignored.
She also lays down a challenge ahead of tomorrow’s Supreme Court ruling – suggesting her advice was ignored on small boats. She says that if the government fails ‘you will have wasted a year and an Act of Parliament, only to arrive back at square one’. And if the government wins, it will still be Sunak’s fault if things don’t work out: ‘If, on the other hand, we win in the Supreme Court, because of the compromises that you insisted on the Illegal Migration Act, the government will struggle to deliver our Rwanda partnership in the way that the public expects.’
What impact will this letter have? It’s of course worth noting that Braverman was willing to find ways to live with their apparent differences prior to getting the sack. It is only after leaving government against her will that she is going on the offensive. Sunak’s supporters insist she has little in the way of supporters and her influence is overblown. When it comes to the general public, an Ipsos Mori poll found that 70 per cent of those surveyed backed Sunak’s decision to axe Braverman.
However, the risk for Sunak is that Braverman manages to latch on to wider discontent over the reshuffle. The New Conservatives group – made up of 2019 MPs – has already come out today to voice concern that it suggests ‘we’re going back into the politics of decline’ and moving away fron the political realignment under Boris Johnson. Should the Supreme Court decide that the Rwanda scheme is unlawful, Sunak will face more criticism from the right of the party.
This also won’t be the last intervention from the former home secretary – she has plenty more to say. The question is whether Braverman can successfully rally the troops behind her. While she is not directly laying down a leadership challenge to Sunak, she is trying to mark herself out as the torchbearer of the right at a time when many MPs’ minds are on the leadership contest that would follow an election defeat. Now she’s outside the tent, Braverman plans to make life difficult for Sunak.