Chris Mason: Is Suella Braverman facing the sack?on November 9, 2023 at 2:44 pm

For as long as Suella Braverman has been Rishi Sunak’s home secretary, she has had a licence to say the unsayable.

Say stuff in public some of her colleagues would only ever dare say in private.

Say stuff in public some of her colleagues wouldn’t even say in private.

How do we know she has this licence?

Because the lack of it would mean being sacked.

So is she going to keep her job?

The prime minister’s official spokesman has said No10 did not sign off her article in The Times.

I am told there was a back and forth yesterday between the Home Office and No 10. Some changes requested by Downing Street were made, others were not.

The spokesman said Downing Street is “looking into what happened”.

Ignore the guff about the prime minister having “full confidence” in the home secretary. That is always true of every minister, until it isn’t – when they’re out.

So it is strictly true, but it tells us nothing.

The home secretary has defied the prime minister, and Downing Street have publicly said that is the case.

One of Labour’s favourite lines of criticism of Rishi Sunak is he is weak.

So can Mr Sunak let Suella Braverman get away with this? Or would sacking her make things worse for him?

There aren’t many good options for the prime minister here.

Some loyal to Mr Sunak are pointing to the Ministerial Code, and pondering that the home secretary may have broken it.

Convention says that is a sackable offence. But then again Rishi Sunak appointed her as home secretary about a week after she’d lost the job for breaking the Ministerial Code.

Convention has had a rough couple of years at Westminster.

And what is Mrs Braverman up to?

Many instantly leap to ascribe a motive to the home secretary’s interventions: her ambitions to lead the Conservative Party one day.

Those ambitions are real.

But Mrs Braverman’s primary motivation is she wants to articulate her authentic view – and high office won’t stop her doing that.

Or at least it won’t for as long as she holds it.

For any public figure to question the integrity of the police would be incendiary.

For the home secretary to do it is astonishing.

That is not to say she is necessarily wrong: I regularly hear, in private, concerns from some Conservatives about the policing of demonstrations.

Perceived double standards. Some protesters treated apparently more leniently than others.

Plenty, including those in policing, would acknowledge it is perfectly legitimate for politicians to scrutinise the work of any vital, publicly funded organisations.

But: public demonstrations are “the brain surgery of policing,” counters Tom Winsor, the former Chief Inspector of Constabulary.

In other words, not easy.

There are a blizzard of complicating factors the police have to juggle, not least the scale of what confronts them.

And they are dynamic, potentially dangerous, rapidly evolving events.

Where does all this leave the prime minister, the home secretary, the government and the Conservative Party?

Let’s remind ourselves of Suella Braverman’s recent remarks.

A year ago, she talked about an “invasion” of migrants.

Her deputy Robert Jenrick wouldn’t repeat the word.

A month ago, Mrs Braverman talked of a “hurricane” of migrants coming to the UK – and suggested too many were too squeamish about immigration.

Again, it was her colleagues left publicly squeamish when asked if they agreed with her language.

A week or so ago, another intervention.

The pro-Palestinian protests were “hate marches”.

And now her article in the The Times.

“These latest comments are unhinged,” one senior Conservative tells me.

A senior Conservative MP adds: “The home secretary’s awfulness is now a reflection on the prime minister. Keeping her in post is damaging him.”

A third source, a senior Tory, claims her remarks about Northern Ireland are “wholly offensive and ignorant.”

So what does the prime minister make of this?

Incendiary remarks from the home secretary punctuated by a period of months of less attention-grabbing were arguably a politically useful pressure valve for Rishi Sunak.

A senior government figure willing to articulate views easily found on the Conservative backbenches.

The question for him now is whether the ratcheting frequency of her interventions – and her insubordination – lead No10 to conclude it is unsustainable for her to stay.

Or lead her to conclude, given the at best tepid public support of her colleagues, that she has outstayed her welcome.

Things do feel like they are coming to a head: where either she leaves or she considerably dials down the frequency of her explosive interventions.

Oh and here’s another curved ball for the prime minister: we’ll find out next Wednesday whether the Supreme Court deems the government’s Rwanda plan for migrants lawful or not.

A flagship policy, led by Suella Braverman falls or flies next week.

Does the prime minister want her in post for that moment, or not? If the plan is on and she’s in post, her position would be hugely strengthened.

Suella Braverman is making news. Not for the first time. And not for the last.