Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 26: Faced with the criticism for re-appointing India-origin Suella Braverman as the country’s home secretary, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended his move claiming that she would be “focused on cracking down on criminals and defending the country’s borders.”
He said she was forced to resign from the Liz Truss cabinet earlier this month even after she admitted her mistake for accidentally emailing classified government documents outside her department.
The news of her reappointment on the official Twitter handle of the Prime Minister drew largely negative comments. Many questioned how the Conservative Party reappointed a leader who had admitted to a security breach. Others questioned her stance on policies — especially on migration control — that has drawn mixed reactions even within her party.
Sunak said the home secretary made an error of judgement but she recognised that she raised the matter and she accepted her mistake. Ms Braverman — an outspoken critic of Rishi Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss’s economic policy — had come out in support of Mr Sunak in the run-up to his election last week. “We need unity, stability and efficiency. Rishi Sunak is the only candidate that fits the bill and I am proud to support him,” she wrote earlier.
Earlier this month, she was also at the centre of controversy for branding Indians as the “largest group of people who overstay” their visas in the UK. She blamed the riots in Leicester following an India-Pakistan cricket match on uncontrolled migration into the UK and the newcomers’ failure to integrate.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly – who’s kept his job under new Prime Minister Sunak – has defended the prime minister’s decision to reappoint Braverman to the role of home secretary. “She said she made a mistake and apologised for that,” Cleverly said. He adds that Braverman has promised a crackdown on crime and to secure borders while in the Home Office.
Asked whether Braverman was back in the post as the result of a deal that helped Sunak gain power, Cleverly said Sunak was “way, way, way ahead” during the latest Conservative leadership contest, adding: “I doubt that he needed any particular individuals’ endorsement.” Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson says Braverman is back in her job as the result of a “grubby deal” which helped Sunak “get over the line and become prime minister.”
Sunak held his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday just before appearing for his debut “Prime Minister’s Questions,” the first big test of Britain’s Indian-origin premier’s leadership where he faced opposition leader Keir Starmer and other Parliamentarians. PMQs is a high-profile weekly event in UK politics, happening every Wednesday at noon when the House of Commons is sitting. For around half an hour, the prime minister is called to the despatch box in the Commons chamber to answer questions from MPs on any subject. The leader of the opposition gets to ask six questions – normally the rowdiest part of the spectacle.
Sunak on Tuesday unveiled his top team in place with key Cabinet appointments and decided to keep the new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, in place for economic stability and brought back Indian-origin Suella Braverman as Home Secretary. In another move aimed at continuity, James Cleverly will stay in his post as Foreign Secretary despite not being a Sunak loyalist. Minister Without Portfolio Nadhim Zahawi told journalists the party was “very, very united” as he departed after the Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street.
Sunak has pledged to govern with “integrity” and has tried to unite the Conservatives by including people from different wings of the party in his top team. But the Opposition Labour Party has criticised the decision to reappoint Braverman, popular on the Tory right, as a home secretary just six days after she resigned over data breaches.
Rishi Sunak’s debut in Parliament as Prime Minister could not have had a more electrifying start as the Opposition left no opportunity in bringing up Sunak’s controversy-filled past. Labour’s Keir Starmer brought up a secretly-filmed video where Sunak allegedly boasts about diverting funding away from deprived urban areas.
“He pretends he’s on the side of working people, but in private he says something different,” Starmer challenged Rishi Sunak on a leaked video of the PM discussing regional funding. “Over the summer he was secretly recorded at a garden party boasting to a group of Tory members that he personally moved money away from deprived areas to wealthy places instead. Rather than apologise or say that he meant something else, why doesn’t he now do the right thing and undo the changes he made to those funding formulas,” the Labour leader said.
Rishi Sunak responded to the question by indulging in a jibe himself. “I know that the Right honourable gentleman rarely leaves North London, but if he does, he will know that there are deprived areas in our rural communities and across the south,” Sunak said amid cheers. He went on to say that his government would relentlessly support and deliver for people across the United Kingdom.
“I will be the first to admit that mistakes were made and that’s the reason I am standing here,” Sunak said. “This summer, I was being honest about the difficulties that we are facing. But when [Starmer] ran for leader, he promised his party he would borrow billions and billions of pounds. I told the truth for the good for the country, he told his party what they wanted to hear.” Leadership is not selling fairytales, Rishi Sunak eloquently reminded Parliament. “It is confronting challenges and that is the leadership that the British people will get from this government.”
Rishi Sunak inherits a UK economy that was headed for recession even before the recent turmoil triggered by Liz Truss. Truss resigned after her budget of tax cuts funded by debt sent shockwaves through markets, crashing the pound. Data Monday showed Britain’s economic downturn has worsened in October, with private-sector output at a 21-month low. “The heightened political and economic uncertainty has caused business activity to fall at a rate not seen since the global financial crisis in 2009 if pandemic lockdown months are excluded,” some economic experts said.