As an American, I know I’m not one to talk about soap-opera politics, but wow, the British government is particularly bonkers right now. About thirteen months ago, Liz Truss was ousted as prime minister. The woman could not outlast a head of lettuce. Truss’s Tory replacement is Rishi Sunak. Sunak is seemingly a steadier hand than Truss, but again, a head of lettuce was a steadier hand than Liz Truss. Sunak, his government and the Tories are all deeply unpopular.
One of the most despised figures in the Sunak government was Suella Braverman, the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Every week, Braverman made international news for some new dystopian policy or cruel statement. One of her latest kerfuffles was writing an unauthorized op-ed about policing of pro-Palestinian protests in the UK. Braverman literally just attended all of the Remembrance events this weekend, and then bright and early on Monday, Sunak fired her. Not only that, but Sunak has appointed former prime minister David Cameron to take over as Foreign Secretary in his cabinet reshuffle.
Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak carried out a dramatic reshuffle to his Cabinet on Monday, firing his divisive home secretary and bringing back former premier David Cameron to the heart of government after a seven-year absence from politics.
The hardline Home Secretary Suella Braverman was sacked early on Monday morning, after making inflammatory comments about the policing of pro-Palestinian protests in central London over the weekend. Her tenure had wrought with scandals and divisive remarks, which had long caused fractures in Sunak’s government.
Sunak then announced he was bringing Cameron back to frontline politics as foreign secretary, in a stunning move that has few parallels in recent British political history. Cameron served as prime minister from 2010 to 2016, resigning after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum that he had called. His premiership set the course of 13 years of Conservative rule, but the self-inflicted chaos of the Brexit referendum and its aftermath threw his party into years of instability from which it is still struggling to emerge.
Downing Street confirmed that James Cleverly, formerly the foreign secretary, will take over from Braverman, a shift that made space for Cameron’s remarkable return to Cabinet.
Braverman had served as Sunak’s interior minister throughout his tenure in Downing Street, but her confrontational rhetoric towards migrants, protesters, the police and even the homeless had caused rifts in the government and sparked speculation that she was plotting a future leadership bid. She most recently courted criticism by accusing London’s police force of applying “double standards” in the way they manage protests, in an op-ed in the Times of London newspaper condemning a pro-Palestinian march that Downing Street said had not been cleared by Sunak.
[From CNN]
It’s funny but also just… sad. I feel bad for all of the people suffering under thirteen years of disastrous Tory rule, and the reemergence of David Cameron should hopefully mark the last days of this Tory sh-tshow. Cameron’s Brexit vote – and the mismanagement of the vote – really started this seven-year descent of Tory psychodrama.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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