Suella Braverman and the Tory Identity Crisis
Suella Braverman. Photo courtesy of UK Home Office via Wikicommons.
A few weeks ago, many tory MPs may have sat with their feet up, enjoying the short but, these days, very rare respite from predictions of their impending defeat and watched how the Israel-Palestine conflict had yet again caused Labour infighting, and prompted questions over Keir Starmer’s position as prime minister in waiting. Cut to Wednesday night, when Suella Braverman’s article in the Times was published and the Conservative party was thrust into chaos.
Her piece, accusing police of being biased towards pro-Palestinian protestors, whose planned demonstrations on Armistice Day were referred to as “hate marches”. Aside from the fact that it is apparently disrespectful to call for a ceasefire on a day that celebrates the end of armed conflict, the highly controversial article was reportedly not approved by officials at No 10 and included lines they had specifically asked be omitted; For example comparing the demonstrations to rallies held during the Troubles. Various factions of the Tory party now call for Braverman to be sacked, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt “distancing himself” from her comments, and The Times reporting today that one cabinet minister believes “she has been a totally useless cabinet minister” and “she is toast”.
Braverman has always been a controversial figure; from saying deporting migrants to Rwanda was her “dream”, referred to small boat crossings as an “invasion”, to being sacked by Liz Truss for breaching the ministerial code. So why did Sunak reappoint her just six days later when he ascended to the premiership? Firstly, being the Conservative’s second choice PM, he was eager to placate all factions of the party. To appeal to the base Sunak often struggles to shore up support with, the Brexiteers and GB News watching voters would have Suella as their representative. And although Sunak’s appeasement put a plaster over the cracks of the Tory party for a short while, the infighting that we are seeing now was never anything short of inevitable.
Though the conflict in the Middle East has stirred tensions in both major parties, there is little to suggest that Keir Starmer won’t be the next Prime Minister, or at the very least that Sunak won’t be shown the door. Jostling to take Sunak’s crown, all prominent Tories will be doing in the next year is auditioning for their role as future leader - and that is precisely what Braverman is doing now. For parts of the party, Sunak is an overly polished technocrat who stabbed Boris Johnson in the back, and when he eventually has to resign after the next election, it’s very possible that the pendulum will swing back to the right of the party.
We must not forget that when it was put to Conservative members they chose Truss - and while she appealed to the right in the form of Reaganomics, Braverman now attempts to seduce them with her Trumpian social conservative values, ‘war on woke’ speeches and anti immigration policies. Look no further than her assertion last week that homelessness was a “lifestyle choice” that needed to be cracked down on, a stance that has shocked and been abhorred by people on all sides of the political spectrum.
If you are someone who obsessively consumes debates within the media about culture wars, either on the left or right, you may believe that there is a large electoral and political base that is fueled by incendiary rhetoric and hatred of the “woke” agenda. But you would be wrong. And so is Suella Braverman.
This week she mistook a small, albeit very loud faction, for a whole party, and maybe even a whole country, and has obviously jumped the gun. But whether she gets sacked tomorrow or is humiliated in a future leadership election, her fate is effectively sealed. While the Conservative Party can be criticized for many things, the immense pressure it has mounted on Sunak to sack Braverman in the wake of these remarks show that perhaps British politics is not as dominated by culture wars and hatred for one another as some at GB news would like us to believe. A fact which, going into the next election, I think is a relief for us all.