Suella Braverman: Shapps won’t back home secretary’s language on policingon November 12, 2023 at 4:20 pm

Grant Shapps is the latest cabinet minister to distance himself from the home secretary’s choice of words, after she criticised police ahead of Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally.

In a Times article, Suella Braverman called protesters “hate marchers” and accused police of a “double standard”.

Mr Shapps said it was “proper” for the home secretary to debate the issue, but he “wouldn’t use that set of words”.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper said she “shouldn’t carry on in her job”.

She also suggested Mrs Braverman’s remarks had made disorder during Saturday’s demonstrations worse.

On Sunday, the home secretary thanked police for “their professionalism in the face of violence an aggression from protesters and counter-protesters”.

She criticised chants and placards from the march saying: “This can’t go on. Week by week, the streets of London are being polluted by hate, violence, and antisemitism… Jewish people in particular feel threatened – further action is necessary.”

Her earlier claims made in the Times article that police were biased for letting Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march go ahead prompted widespread criticism and calls for the prime minister to sack her.

Pressure has increased on the home secretary after the Metropolitan Police made more than 100 arrests on Saturday and said officers faced “aggression” from counter-protesters.

Speaking on Sunday, the defence secretary refused to say whether Mrs Braverman will still be in her role in a week’s time.

“A week is a long time in politics,” Mr Shapps told Sky News’s Trevor Phillips adding the make-up of the cabinet is “entirely a matter for the prime minister”.

Downing Street is currently investigating how the article was published without edits they had wanted to be made – for now Rishi Sunak has backed his home secretary.

In her article in the Times, Mrs Braverman claimed aggressive right-wing protesters were “rightly met with a stern response”, while “pro-Palestinian mobs” were “largely ignored”.

She went on to say police were applying “double standards” and “played favourites when it comes to demonstrators”.

On Friday, while Downing Street gave its backing to Mrs Braverman, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said her comments were “not words that I myself would have used”.

Mr Shapps told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg he also would not endorse Mrs Braverman’s choice of language.

He added: “I think there have been concerns sometimes that people have felt at liberty, perhaps because they haven’t seen swift enough action to carry on going out carrying these banners, singing these chants and breaking laws which were in place to prevent racial hatred.

“On the other hand I wouldn’t put it in those particular set of words, because I recognise the police have a very difficult job to do in managing marches which contain large numbers of people – a lot of that work has to be done afterwards.”

Ex-cabinet minister Nadine Dorries said the responsibility laid with Rishi Sunak and she also suggested that, as a women in high office, criticism of Mrs Braverman was “steeped in misogyny and sexism”.

Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf has called for the home secretary to resign as has the Welsh First Minister who said Mrs Braverman’s comments “put other people in harms way”.

Mark Drakeford told the BBC: “It’s not for me to give advice to people in London, but what I would say is if a minister in the Welsh Government behaved in that way, they wouldn’t expect to continue as a minister.”

Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said Mrs Braverman cannot stay in her job.

She blamed the ugly scenes in the capital on Mrs Braverman’s “appalling and unprecedented attack” on the Metropolitan Police’s operational independence and impartiality.

“I don’t see how she can continue to do this job, she does not have the credibility or the authority to do the serious job of home secretary,” Ms Cooper said.