UK’s Sunak considers Home Secretary Braverman’s fate in week of tests for his authority

LONDON – The immediate threat of chaos in London’s streets has subsided, but that may only provide a brief respite for Rishi Sunak as he enters one of his most consequential weeks as Britain’s prime minister.

Chief among Mr Sunak’s challenges is whether to fire Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Her criticism of police tactics towards pro-Palestinian protesters has been blamed for drawing out far-right groups that clashed with officers during mass demonstrations in the capital on Saturday.

On Sunday, a Downing Street official declined to say if Ms Braverman would still be in her job in a week.

Defence Secretary Grant Shapps responded to the same question only by noting that “a week is a long time in politics”.

Mr Sunak has come under pressure to punish Ms Braverman for criticising the Metropolitan Police in a newspaper commentary.

Her remarks had come hours after he had appeared to resolve disputes with the force’s commissioner about protests overlapping with annual events to commemorate Britain’s war dead.

Two Cabinet members on Sunday described the challenge to the prime minister’s authority as untenable, despite Ms Braverman’s strong popularity among the Conservative Party’s right wing.

If Mr Sunak keeps Ms Braverman, he will feed efforts by Labour leader Keir Starmer to paint him as weak ahead of an expected general election in 2024, one Tory lawmaker said.

Ousting her may prompt the right to revolt, leaving the Conservatives even more divided, another said, calling it a lose-lose situation. 

More than 300,000 pro-Palestine demonstrators turned out on Saturday for the largest march in London since the escalation in hostilities between Israel and Hamas in October.

Some protest leaders credited Ms Braverman – who had branded participants as “hate marchers”, in reference to reports that past events had included chants of “jihad” – with increasing public support.

The Met has also blamed the political drama for making their efforts to maintain public order more difficult.

The conflict in Gaza, the Armistice Day holiday and the intense debate about protest and policing “all combined to increase community tensions”, Assistant Police Commissioner Matt Twist said late on Saturday.

Mr Shapps, who was representing the government on the Sunday political talk shows, deflected questions about Ms Braverman’s responsibility.

He told Sky News: “These marches were already going to happen. These counter-protests were already going to happen.”

When asked about her future, he said the makeup of the government was a matter for the prime minister.

Police made some 145 arrests during the demonstrations on Saturday.

These included scores of counter-protesters whom police prevented from intercepting the largely peaceful pro-Palestine march.

The Met said on Sunday that seven men had been charged with a variety of offences, including assault on an emergency worker, criminal damage and possession of an offensive weapon.

“This can’t go on,” Ms Braverman said on the social media platform X on Sunday, thanking police and calling the injuries suffered by some officers “an outrage”.

While she mentioned “violence and aggression” by members of both camps, she focused her criticism on the pro-Palestine marchers. 

“Antisemitism and other forms of racism together with the valorising of terrorism on such a scale is deeply troubling,” Ms Braverman said on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Police have posted photographs on social media of people they are looking to identify over possible anti-Semitic hate crimes and supporting Hamas, which the UK has designated as a terrorist organisation. 

Ms Braverman, who oversees immigration policy, is closely linked to another looming milestone for Mr Sunak: a UK Supreme Court ruling due on Wednesday on the legality of the government’s plan to deport asylum-seekers to Rwanda.

The timing complicates the prime minister’s decision on Ms Braverman because waiting until after the judgment is handed down risks making it look like the two events were related. 

The government isn’t confident it will win the Rwanda case, the Downing Street official said.

Some Conservative officials are bracing for a Cabinet shake-up.

They believe it could come as soon as Monday, when Mr Sunak’s public schedule is clear other than a foreign policy speech in the evening.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden held meetings last week to discuss a potential reshuffle, Bloomberg reported last week. 

Several Tory lawmakers have privately urged Mr Sunak to sack Ms Braverman, echoing public demands for her exit by the opposition Labour Party. 

“She inflamed tension, she also attacked the police, undermined respect for the police at a really important time – that was highly irresponsible,” Ms Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, told the BBC on Sunday.

“It is just not the way any home secretary would do that job other than Suella Braverman, and Rishi Sunak is being so weak that he is allowing her to do that. It is very damaging.” BLOOMBERG