The Revolving Door in UK Politics
Braverman out. Cameron in. Cleverly moves sideways.
The so-called Westminster bubble enjoys the intrigue of what is known as a Cabinet ‘reshuffle.’ But as the terms imply, it can sometimes suggest that the player (in this case, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak) has a losing hand.
Of the departing Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, the best that can be said is that she was a strident advocate of her own position and found it difficult to follow the rules. This is the second time she has left the post of Home Secretary — a quaint name for a senior ministry of sprawling responsibilities. During the brief administration of Prime Minister Liz Truss (who still holds the record for doing the most damage in the least time), Braverman was obliged to resign because, contrary to the ministerial code, she shared internal, confidential documents via a personal email. Now, she has been sacked for publishing an article demanding a curtailment of marches calling for a Middle-East ceasefire without having its tone and content checked with the PM’s office, as is the protocol.
Checking Braverman’s tone is a little like judging the quality of a whisper through a megaphone. A very partial list of her vociferous language would include:
- characterizing the small boats carrying migrants across the Channel as “an invasion”
- explaining the increase in the number of homeless people on UK streets as “a lifestyle choice”
- referring to all protests advocating a moderation of Israeli actions in Gaza as “hate marches”
- describing her plans to send UK asylum seekers for processing in the central African Republic of Rwanda as “her dream, her obsession,” despite it being regarded by legal experts as a breach of international law; a view confirmed by the ruling of the UK’s Supreme Court last week.
Braverman’s first departure from the Home Office should have left no one in any doubt that she would not go without a long letter. Her 31 October 2022 letter to the parliamentary committee on standards explaining her breach of the ministerial code ran to seven, single-spaced pages. Her public letter in response to her sacking on 13 November 2023 was pithy by comparison: a mere three-pages of accusations and political attacks. One of its favourite words was “betrayal.”
She poses in her letter as the key figure in ensuring that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister in the first place. She asserts that he was not the choice of the majority of Conservative MPs, and only secured the leadership and thus the premiership because of her support. The basis for this claim is that she remains a prominent figure in a right-wing, fervently pro-Brexit faction of MPs that goes by the innocuous name of the European Research Group. She delivered their votes. Accordingly, she was seen as one of the ERG’s leading advocates in Sunak’s Cabinet.
She goes on to claim that her support was conditional on Sunak agreeing to give priority to the following list which is phrased in her characteristically legalistic and combative language:
- Reduce overall legal migration as set out in the 2019 manifesto through, inter alia, reforming the international students route and increasing salary thresholds on work visas.
- Include specific “notwithstanding clauses” into new legislation to stop the boats, i.e. exclude the operation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Human Rights Act (HRA) and other international law that had thus far obstructed progress on this issue.
- Deliver the Northern Ireland Protocol and Retained EU Law Bills in their then existing form and timetable.
- Issue unequivocal statutory guidance to schools that protects biological sex, safeguards single sex spaces, and empowers parents to know what is being taught to their children.
Despite implying that this list was a summary of promises made to voters in the 2019 election manifesto that delivered Boris Johnson’s landslide majority, the list is — how should I put it? — highly selective, and in most cases, false. For instance, on immigration, the emphasis in 2019 was on introducing an Australian-style points system to attract workers to fill key roles in different sectors of the economy. It did not dwell on the negative impact of European law. There is not a single mention of “stopping the boats” in the document.
She is on safer ground with regard to Northern Ireland. The official name of the Conservative Party for many years has been the Conservative and Unionist Party. However, once again, despite a genuflection at the altar of ‘delivering the benefits of Brexit,’ the 2019 manifesto was mainly about promising to promote economic development in line with Johnson’s overall ‘levelling up’ policy for regions outside of London and the South-East.
Finally, her reference to protecting single-sex spaces relates to debates about the rights of trans-gender persons, and concurrent culture wars about sex education in schools that have erupted far more recently in the UK than 2019. Such issues may have formed part of a Braverman-Sunak discussion in relation to prisons since they are a Home Office responsibility or in relation to the UK government’s responses to legislation by the devolved assembly in Scotland. But they hardly warrant the prominence Braverman gives them in her efforts to portray Sunak as someone who is failing to deliver the steps promised to voters in 2019. Nonetheless, in its angry tone, it is quite a Parthian shot. (Apparently, it’s claimed that ancient Parthian archers were particularly adept at firing at the enemy while ostensibly riding away).
The return of David Cameron has — perhaps not coincidentally — diverted media’s attention from Braverman’s tirade. Cameron’s return was occasioned by the transfer of James Cleverly from the Foreign Office to the Home Office. While some may know little of Cleverly, who can be more diplomatic than Braverman, it is clear that he shares with her a very clear hope of being the next Conservative leader if the next election goes as badly as polls suggest.
Some have even read Sunak’s decision to move Cleverly from the government’s key international role to one of its leading domestic ones (arguably, only the Treasury post of Chancellor is more influential), as a kind of anointing of his successor, but there is a broader consensus that as the ship sinks, it might be better not to be on board. This is obviously very much the Braverman strategy, and she will certainly continue to channel internal discontent against the man who sacked her. She has also left Cleverly the thankless task of making the Rwanda plan work, despite its illegal status, dubious morality and excessive cost.
As recently as July of this year, Cleverly had indicated that he preferred to stay at the Foreign Office, so his agreement to move to the Home Office must have been negotiated carefully. Like Braverman, he was a Brexit supporter , and like both Braverman and leadership rival Kemi Badenoch, he reflects the racial diversity of Sunak’s ministerial team.
Braverman is the daughter of Asian parents who came to Britain from Kenya and Mauritius whereas Cleverly is of Sierra Leonean heritage and Badenoch of Nigerian ancestry. All of them would see their experience and success as evidence that the UK is a land where talent and hard work permits success in a free market.
Cameron’s return also came with its own perils. The former prime minister is not currently a member of parliament and thus could only take up the role of Foreign Secretary by entering the House of Lords; an expedient that underlines the peculiarities of British democracy. We now have a prime minister who was not elected by the electorate, and a foreign secretary in office thanks to a peerage. Hardly a great example of democratic practice!
The upper chamber fills contemporary Conservatives with ambivalence. They abhor the presence of the senior Anglican bishops as lords spiritual, especially when they speak out against the mistreatment of asylum seekers, welfare recipients, and workers, yet they know that the regular distribution of life peerages is one of the ways they attract generous donors to the party.
Like his Oxford University contemporary and Bullingdon Club drinking companion, Boris Johnson, David Cameron followed a traditional path to political prominence. However, while his return to the Cabinet has been welcomed by those who appreciate his genial statesman-like manners, it is hard to believe that everyone has forgotten what the Cameron premiership was actually like.
To those outside the party, he is remembered for his austerity policies in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis that many see as the root cause of the current, withered state of the UK’s health & social services. To those inside the party, he is the man who believed that because he was able to use a referendum to stem the tide of Scottish nationalism, he could use the same device to end the wrangling over membership of the European Union. An ardent Remainer, he resigned when the Brexit vote went against him and that remains his enduring legacy.
His return will be used by Braverman and her followers to swell disaffection with Sunak for not delivering on Brexit’s promise (a chimera that I myself have never seen). This is why forcing through the Rwanda plan by legislation that diminishes asylum claimants’ rights of appeal and limits the application of the European Convention on Human Rights has become so important. Sunak’s declaration that he will not allow a foreign court to block the Rwandan flights and thus dictate British immigration policy reflects his fear of the ERG’s continuing influence.
Turning to foreign policy matters in Cameron’s in-tray, Bronwen Maddox, chief executive of the think-tank, Chatham House, also points to his unimpressive record in relation to the Middle East, both in terms of precipitous interventions in Libya in 2011, and Syria in 2013. As his visit to Kiev last week made clear, he will urge international support for Ukraine and he is equally unlikely to deviate from the US position over Gaza.
As usual established ties with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states suggest that the UK will try to contain the conflict. But Maddox lays particular stress on his past advocacy of close relations with China, which might go even further than Cleverly’s during his August visit to Beijing, despite the many dangers posed by Xi’s expansionist plans in the region and China’s wider spy network. After all, Cameron was briefly chairman of the UK-China investment fund, and he has a record of putting profits first.
Thus, despite the revolving door, the Conservative Party still looks ill-placed to remain in government after the next election. Its main hope seems to be that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party may descend into bickering that will remind voters of why they left Labour in the first place. With a year to go before an election has to happen, it will be interesting to watch how the two main parties cope with their disunities.
