London CNN –
Embattled British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak carried out a dramatic reshuffle of his Cabinet on Monday, sacking his divisive home secretary and bringing former Prime Minister David Cameron back to the center of government after a seven-year absence from politics.
Hardline Home Secretary Suella Braverman was sacked early Monday morning after she made inflammatory comments about the policing of pro-Palestinian protests in central London over the weekend. During her time in office, there were scandals and divisive statements that had long caused fractures in Sunak’s government.
Sunak then announced that he would bring Cameron back to the front lines of politics as foreign secretary – a stunning move that has few parallels in Britain’s recent political history.
Cameron was prime minister from 2010 to 2016 and resigned after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum he called.
His premiership set the course for 13 years of Conservative rule, but the self-inflicted chaos of the Brexit referendum and its aftermath plunged his party into years of instability from which it is still struggling to emerge.
Downing Street confirmed that James Cleverly, the former foreign secretary, would take over from Braverman, a move that made way for Cameron’s remarkable return to the cabinet.
Braverman was Sunak’s home secretary throughout his time in Downing Street, but her confrontational rhetoric towards migrants, protesters, police and even the homeless had caused divisions in the government and sparked speculation that she was planning a future bid for the leadership.
Most recently, she drew criticism for accusing London police of applying “double standards” in the way they handle protests. In an editorial in London’s Times newspaper, she condemned a pro-Palestinian march that Downing Street said had not been approved by Sunak.
Far-right counter-protesters clashed with police in central London on Saturday after Braverman described the pro-Palestinian demonstration as a “hate march”, stoking tensions around a Remembrance Sunday rally.
Braverman’s comments on policing and her strong criticism of Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally drew criticism from figures across the political spectrum.
“If you make such divisive comments, there is a risk that you will inflame both sides,” Neil Basu, the former head of Britain’s anti-terrorism police force, told the BBC on Monday morning. “Making comments that are potentially divisive is a very dangerous thing… no Home Secretary we have served under would have done the same.”
Her departure from government comes as Sunak’s party remains deeply unpopular with voters. Polls suggest the Conservatives are heading for a potentially catastrophic election defeat next year.
Sunak appears to have been betting that Cameron’s return would provide a stability that Westminster has been missing for some time. But there is a risk that much of the public will become increasingly convinced that the party has run out of ideas.
Cameron resigned as an MP shortly after leaving Downing Street, meaning King Charles had to quickly approve his elevation to the House of Lords on Monday so he could become a minister.
In recent decades, this move can only be compared with Alec Douglas-Home, who was Prime Minister for a year from 1963 and returned as Foreign Secretary in 1970 under Edward Heath’s government.
Cameron wrote on Monday that he had “happily accepted” Sunak’s offer to become foreign secretary, but acknowledged criticism he had made of the prime minister – such as when Sunak rejected a long-awaited and expensive high-speed rail project that Cameron had championed.
“While I may have disagreed with some individual decisions, it is clear to me that Rishi Sunak is a strong and capable Prime Minister who is showing exemplary leadership at a difficult time,” Cameron said.
His return to cabinet is a stunning turn in an influential political career that seemed to end abruptly seven years ago.
Cameron brought the Conservative Party back to government in 2010 in a coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats, repairing the Tories’ then-shattered image as an out-of-touch and antiquated political group.
He combined liberal social policies – pushing his party to endorse the legalization of same-sex marriage – with tough economic policies, drastically cutting the budgets of Britain’s public services and shrinking the size of the state.
But Cameron resigned after unsuccessfully campaigning to remain in the EU.
His appointment as foreign secretary suggests that the Tories’ experiment in populism – which first blossomed during the Brexit campaign and won the party’s hearts during the reigns of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – has been abandoned ahead of next year’s general election .
It has been barely a month since Sunak addressed Conservative Party members at the Conservative Party’s annual conference, describing himself as the candidate for change and directly attacking aspects of his own party’s last 13 years in office. He signaled that he was willing to engage in culture war politics on trans rights and climate change.
Now two of his three top cabinet posts are filled by moderate veterans of 21st century conservatism – in Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor.
Unlike Braverman, neither Cleverly nor Cameron will go off script and take action against the police or protesters. It’s hard to imagine, for example, either man advocating that Britain withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights so that it can more easily send refugees to Rwanda – a key Braverman policy that the courts have been blocking for months.
But Braverman’s influence is unlikely to go away. Sunak has made Braverman a powerful enemy, giving ammunition to critics who will today see confirmation of what they already suspected: that the prime minister is a centrist traitor who is more comfortable around other centrist Conservatives than he is to promote populism.
Braverman has long been a controversial figure within the Conservative Party. She has tried to excite the group’s right-wing base with populist messages and become the face of Britain’s hardline stance against asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, but her rhetoric and controversy-filled reign have appalled many of the party’s moderate members.
Days before her comments on Saturday’s protests deepened discord between her office and police, she claimed access to tents in a post on the social media platform.
Sunak had only insisted on Thursday that he had confidence in Braverman. But her dismissal sets off a potential power struggle at the top of the ruling party, plunging Britain into another period of political infighting and instability.
While a leadership challenge to Sunak would represent a dramatic risk for a party that has already had five prime ministers in seven years, discontent is growing within its ranks over Sunak’s inability to reverse the Conservatives’ fortunes.
Alternatively, Braverman could consider a bid for the leadership after the upcoming general election, expected late next year, if the Conservatives lose power to the vibrant opposition Labor Party.
But even in that scenario, Braverman is expected to use the coming months to position himself as a radical alternative to Sunak – a push that could complicate the prime minister’s election campaign in the new year.
On Monday, Braverman was fired as interior secretary for the second time in just over a year. During Liz Truss’s chaotic term in office last year, she was in office for six weeks before resigning after breaking ministerial rules by using a private email address.
But just a few days later she found herself in the same position again; Her resignation sparked Truss’ downfall, and her successor Sunak quickly reinstated her after seizing power.
Under Sunak, Braverman led a high-profile push to crack down on small boat crossings of asylum seekers. The government’s flagship illegal immigration bill, passed by MPs earlier this year, would essentially give the government the right to deport anyone who arrives in the UK illegally.
She is an equally angry culture warrior, borrowing the rhetoric of the American right as she denounces “woke” culture, transgender rights and climate protesters.
Her frequent, headline-grabbing remarks have given ammunition to the government’s critics. Last week, after Sunak’s government unveiled its plan for the new parliamentary session, opposition leader Keir Starmer told the House of Commons that Sunak should “think very carefully about what your government is committing to”.
“Without a serious home secretary there can be no serious government and he cannot be a serious prime minister,” Starmer said.