Tory support for Suella Braverman drains away

Suella Braverman’s controversial Cabinet career hangs in the balance this weekend with Rishi Sunak seemingly caught in a Catch-22.

The Prime Minister will be damned if he sacks his Home Secretary, as it will trigger a backbench revolt, or damned if he doesn’t, because she will continue to de-stabilise the Government. At least that has been the conventional wisdom.

However, after a week in which Ms Braverman overshadowed the King’s Speech by suggesting some people sleep rough as a “lifestyle choice” while touting a ban on tents for the homeless, and then triggered uproar after accusing the police of bias against right-wing protesters after allowing a pro-Palestine march to go ahead on Armistice Day today, Conservatives are questioning whether the balance has tipped in favour of her removal.

Several Tory MPs say Ms Braverman’s support among colleagues is overstated, with one minister suggesting her sacking would be met with a “shrug” on the backbenches.

Given this calculation, a Tory insider says Mr Sunak “needs to show us he’s got some balls and he’s not a Ken doll” and fire the most senior woman in Cabinet.

Even right-wingers suggest Ms Braverman’s sacking may not necessarily trigger chaos in the party as she is distracting from Government achievements that MPs can trumpet to voters.

One MP tells i: “Suella is clearly stretching collective responsibility and government messaging, causing huge turmoil within the Parliamentary Party, which could lead to colleagues openly – publicly – backing or attacking her which takes away from focus [on small boats crossing the channel] down by 50 per cent and numbers of people illegally entering UK down by around a third.

“Everyone knows she isn’t PM’s real choice for Home Secretary but question is who would you replace her with?

“I don’t think she should be sacked but I don’t think she has as many die hard supporters on the right as some think – I think many see her as the only right-wing person in cabinet so ‘support’ her in order to ensure one is inside the tent.”

A minister meanwhile agrees that Ms Braverman “doesn’t” have a proper following on the backbenches. “The broader ideas do but she doesn’t,” the minister says.

Asked how MPs would react if she was removed from her post, they replied: “I think they would shrug.”

Another MP says simply: “She still has supporters? LOL. There don’t appear to be that many apart from the usual headbangers.”

A Tory insider offered a similar verdict. “There aren’t that many MPs who are going to cry if she’s not there,” they said.

“Yeah, [Common Sense Group chairman] Sir John Hayes will, but not many others. There are other people on the right you can promote and put in Cabinet.”

The risk for Mr Sunak is the longer he delays his decision, the more the spotlight shines on him, rather than Ms Braverman.

One ex-Cabinet minister branded the Home Secretary “thick”, adding that the Prime Minister “must see it” and questioning why he does not simply see she is a “liability” and sack her.

Another MP who previously served in the Cabinet said: “I think she is trying to get fired, and I hope she succeeds.”

Senior Tories are understood to be concerned that sacking Ms Braverman would ignite her campaign to become party leader. But a second Tory insider also dismissed that as a risk, saying: “Once she loses her platform as Home Secretary, people will lose interest in her.”

They said No 10 looked “politically weak” for keeping her in post. “They should have sacked her a long time ago.

“[Mr Sunak] now needs to make a virtue of it and turn it into a strength and say anyone with this divisive rhetoric is not welcome here.

“He needs to say, ‘I’m backing the cops’. The worst thing No 10 could do now is turn this into an argument about the ministerial code and due process.”

But the Home Secretary has won at least one Tory MP over.

“She is trying to get all this nonsense sorted out with the police, and it is not easy, so I back her,” says a backbencher, who is usually a Braverman-sceptic. But I know there is a lot of tension in the Cabinet about it.”

While Ms Braverman was looking safe for the weekend on Friday night, many are wondering whether the Prime Minister’s long-awaited Cabinet reshuffle will be brought forward to next week and see the Home Secretary replaced.

“She was always going to be sacked,” says a senior Tory who describes Ms Braverman’s behaviour as “bonkers”. “She’s trying to make it look like she made it happen, rather than she was just sacked for ineptitude.”

Despite the backlash reaching something of a fever pitch, many suggest it would have been impossible to get rid of Ms Braverman before today’s controversial pro-Palestine march and far-right counter demonstrations have run their course.

This would risk the Home Secretary being able to turn around and tell Mr Sunak she was right to question the police’s role, if the Armistice Day demonstrations are marred by violence.

One MP says: “I think it could be a shitshow on Saturday if the Met aren’t careful… It’s gotten to a very unpleasant position and I do worry where we’re going to end up with this.”

A Tory insider agrees: “What if it kicks off on Saturday, she will be able to say ‘I was right’.”

The Supreme Court’s decision to deliver its long-awaited verdict on the Rwanda deportation scheme on Wednesday, further complicates matters.

Ms Braverman has made the policy a cornerstone of her work in Cabinet and some believe that if the judgment goes against the Government, the Home Secretary could immediately break ranks to call for the UK to quit the European Convention on Human Rights.

However, she is also seen by some as the ideal person to front up and operationalise the scheme if it gets judges’ approval. “I’m sensing all is hanging in the balance,” says a Tory MP.

But even if Ms Braverman has been a perfect foil for Mr Sunak as he attempts to “stop the boats”, her row with the police has changed the mood.

“Her relationship with the police is going to be totally f**ked,” a Tory insider says: “The Home Secretary doesn’t have any power over the police – you do it by being nice to them, that’s the only way that relationship works, by having an open channel of communication where you are not bollocking them publicly all the time…

“If that breaks down the whole thing just doesn’t work. If you are going to make law and order a big part of your election strategy, you can’t have the police rowing in public with the Government.”

But the delays to the long awaited reshuffle has left some wondering whether it will ever happen, with a backbencher joking they thought it would finally happen “shortly after HS2 was finished construction”.

However there were signs at Tuesday’s King’s Speech debate that Mr Sunak’s patience has finally run out, according to one minister. They were watching as Sir Keir Starmer urged the Prime Minister to “think very carefully” about the influence of Ms Braverman who was seated next to him. Mr Sunak was stony-faced as the Labour leader delivered his warning.

“His body language said a lot,” the minister says. “He was leaning away from her.”