UK PM Rishi Sunak sacks Suella Braverman; James Cleverly named new Home Secretary

The move follows days of tensions over an article Suella Braverman wrote accusing the London police of pro-Palestine bias.

By: Express Web Desk

Bengaluru | Updated: November 13, 2023 04:10 PM IST

3 min read

This combination photo shows British Home Secretary Suella Braverman and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak . (Photos via their Facebook pages)

Listen to this article

Your browser does not support the audio element.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak Monday sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman. British foreign minister James Cleverly has replaced Braverman as the interior minister, the Prime Minister’s Office informed.

The move follows days of tensions over an article Braverman wrote accusing the London police of pro-Palestine bias. Initially, Sunak had chosen to back her, with his No. 10 office issuing a statement on Thursday saying that the Prime Minister has “full confidence in her” but that he did not approve of her comments.

Reacting to the sacking, Braverman said she will have “more to say in due course”. “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary … I will have more to say in due course,” she was quoted as saying by PA Media.

Former British prime minister David Cameron is set to become foreign secretary, the Telegraph newspaper reported, returning to the political front line after he quit in 2016 when he failed to keep Britain in the European Union.

As per an article on the BBC, Braverman was offered a junior job in the government but is considered unlikely to accept.

This is the second time that Braverman has left a cabinet position midway. Earlier, during the Liz Truss government in 2022, she had served as the Home Secretary but left the role for breaking the ministerial code by sending an official document from her personal email. She was brought back to the role around six weeks later when Rishi Sunak took oath as the new Conservative PM.

The furore followed an opinion piece Braverman wrote regarding “hate marches” being held in London over the ongoing Israeli attacks in Gaza. In an article published in the British daily The Times on Wednesday, Braverman had accused Metropolitan officers of taking a softer stance towards left-wing causes.

“I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza,” Braverman wrote, adding, “They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland.”

From the homepage