Suella Braverman Sacked Over Times Letter in Defiance of No. 10, Accusing Met Police of Bias

The Prime Minister has sacked Suella Braverman after the Home Secretary defied No. 10 in an article in the Times accusing the Met Police of bias in the policing of protests.

James Cleverly has been appointed the new Home Secretary, moving from his post as Foreign Secretary. In perhaps the most surprising development of the morning, former Prime Minister David Cameron has replaced Cleverly as the new Home Secretary.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has given Cameron, who is not currently a Member of Parliament, a life peerage, in order for him to be appointed as a cabinet minister. This may open up the Prime Minister to claims of flouting the democratic process, as well as dismay amongst the parliamentary Conservative party, as to why an able replacement could not be found from within the ranks of sitting MPs.

Braverman's incendiary letter, the latest in a long line of controversial commentary from the outgoing Home Secretary, proved to be one step too far for even Rishi Sunak to ignore.

In addition, No. 10 said the contents of the letter had "not been cleared". The Prime Minister's office had wanted the language toned down. In response, backers of Braverman in the Conservative Party called No. 10 "clowns".

Calls for her departure had been growing from both sides of the aisle. Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, said Mrs Braverman actions were "highly irresponsible" and inflamed tensions, making the job of the police harder.

Some accused the Prime Minister of being too weak to sack her – pointing to a potential fear at No. 10 of a right-wing rebellion within the party were Braverman to face the axe.

Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey said: "It was the prime minister's sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. They need to put us all out of our misery and call a general election now."

However, claims in her letter to the Times that the Metropolitan Police was "biased", over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests in London, were the last straw even for Sunak.

In the letter, Braverman said she did not believe that the protest marches were "merely a cry for help for Gaza" but an "assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland".

A source close to Braverman told the BBC her reference was to "dissident republicans" in Northern Ireland.

One Conservative party source called the comparison "wholly offensive and ignorant".

Braverman's letter also questioned why "lockdown objectors were given no quarter by public order police yet Black Lives Matter's demonstrators were enabled, allowed to break rules".

"I have spoken to serving and former police officers who have noted this double standard," the former Home Secretary wrote.

Braverman also said that there was "a perception that senior officers play favourites when it comes to protesters".

Braverman said the pro-Palestinian marches seen in London for the last several weeks in response to Israel's continuing siege and attack on Gaza, had been "problematic" because of "violence around the fringes" as well as "highly offensive" chants, posters and stickers.

"Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law," she wrote, referencing far-right counter-protestors who gathered around the Cenotaph on Saturday.

The Met said in a statement that the counter-protestors, who identified themselves with the far-right English Defence League (EDL), were "already intoxicated, aggressive and clearly looking for confrontation".

Former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries said Ms Braverman had been trying to get fired, saying that the latter "becomes a martyr" in service to the right wing "if Sunak sacks her".

"The competition is on now for who is going to be the leader of the opposition," Ms Dorries told the BBC, claiming that Braverman was eyeing the Party leadership.

Sunak's camp believes the fallout can be contained, claiming: "She hasn't got an army behind her."

Braverman's comments were enough even for former Conservative home secretary, Priti Patel, herself seen as on the right wing of the party, to comment, recalling the COVID inquiry into the operational independence of the police, as she said "that we as politicians were not there to dictate directly to the police as to when to arrest people".

The Prime Minister has had to distance himself from Braverman's rhetoric on multiple past occasions. Most recently he refused to back her comments claiming multiculturalism had "failed", that immigration was like a "hurricane" and claiming that rough sleeping was a "lifestyle choice".

However, it was Sunak himself who reappointed Braverman to the role, after she had to resign during Liz Truss's tenure over mishandling of official communications – the appointment was seen at the time as a move to shore up Sunak's position within the right wing of the party.

In September 2022, then newly appointed to the post, Braverman said it was her "dream and obsession" to deport refugees to Rwanda.

She caused further controversy a few weeks later, defending the government's contentious Public Order Bill - which later passed even as the UN and many others decried its contents - whilst attacking what she viewed as "the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati" that caused public disruption, in her view.

Her claim that Britain faced "an invasion of our Southern coast" also drew much condemnation; as did her statement that grooming gang members are "almost all British Pakistani" – factually incorrect comments that were seen as pandering to the right-wing.

After the demonstration at the weekend, the Metropolitan Police issued a statement saying that "a week of intense debate about protest and policing" had helped to "increase community tensions" — seen as a veiled reference to Braverman's criticism of the force.

The Met is operationally independent of the government, and the opposition Labour Party had accused Braverman — whose brief included law and order — of "demeaning" her office by seeming to question the judgment of Police leadership.

Braverman has said: "It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary... I will have more to say in due course."

The suggestion is that a scathing "resignation" speech is on the way; one that will present a further challenge for the Prime Minister.