7 questions for Suella Braverman

Photo by Ian Talmacs on Unsplash

So yesterday Suella Braverman shared her letter to the PM in response to her being sacked.  Here are 6 key questions to Suella.

1) Will you share the documents, letters, proposals, legal advice, policy detail and action proposals your letter mentions?

2) Will you share the proof that these were often met with equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest?

3) What obligations did you accept on becoming the Home Secretary?

4) In withdrawing from ECHR, HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK, what safeguards for individuals did you suggest remain in UK law?

5) You appear to be suggesting there is no Plan B if the Rwanda scheme is judged to be unlawful. Isn't it the job of the Home Secretary to develop a Plan B?  Or are you saying that you were ordered to not develop a Plan B?

6) You say someone needs to be honest on the PMs plan not working.  If you're being honest, how much of the mess we are in is due to the previous conservative PMs plans not working?

7) What are the facts that support your assertion about the quiet majority?

TEXT FROM SUELLA BRAVERMAN RESIGNATION LETTER - with questions

Dear Prime Minister,

Thank you for your phone call yesterday morning in which you asked me to leave government. While disappointing, this is for the best.

It has been my privilege to serve as home secretary and deliver on what the British people have sent us to Westminster to do. I want to thank all of those civil servants, police, Border Force officers and security professionals with whom I have worked and whose dedication to public safety is exemplary.

I am proud of what we achieved together: delivering on our manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 new police officers and enacting new laws such as the Public Order Act 2023 and the National Security Act 2023. I also led a programme of reform: on antisocial behaviour, police dismissals and standards, reasonable lines of inquiry, grooming gangs, knife crime, non-crime hate incidents and rape and serious sexual offences. And I am proud of the strategic changes that I was delivering to Prevent, Contest, serious organised crime and fraud. I am sure that this work will continue with the new ministerial team.

As you know, I accepted your offer to serve as home secretary in October 2022 on certain conditions.  Suella Braverman should share this critical document she says sets out clearly the terms on which she agreed with the PM to be Home Secretary.  An obvious question is what terms did the PM set for Suella Braverman being a Cabinet member?

Despite you having been rejected by a majority of party members during the summer leadership contest and thus having no personal mandate to be prime minister, I agreed to support you because of the firm assurances you gave me on key policy priorities. These were, among other things:

1. Reduce overall legal migration as set out in the 2019 manifesto through, inter alia, reforming the international students route and increasing salary thresholds on work visas.

2. Include specific “notwithstanding clauses” into new legislation to stop the boats, ie exclude the operation of the European convention on human rights, Human Rights Act and other international law that had thus far obstructed progress on this issue.

3. Deliver the Northern Ireland protocol and retained EU law bills in their then existing form and timetable.

4. Issue unequivocal statutory guidance to schools that protects biological sex, safeguards single sex spaces, and empowers parents to know what is being taught to their children.

This was a document with clear terms to which you agreed in October 2022 during your second leadership campaign. I trusted you. It is generally agreed that my support was a pivotal factor in winning the leadership contest and thus enabling you to become prime minister.

For a year, as home secretary I have sent numerous letters to you on the key subjects contained in our agreement, made requests to discuss them with you and your team, and put forward proposals on how we might deliver these goals. I worked up the legal advice, policy detail and action to take on these issues. This was often met with equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest.  So Suella Braverman should publish the letters, proposals, legal advice, policy detail and action she mentions.  Plus the proof that these were often met with equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest.

 You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies. Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises.

These are not just pet interests of mine. They are what we promised the British people in our 2019 manifesto which led to a landslide victory. They are what people voted for in the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Our deal was no mere promise over dinner, to be discarded when convenient and denied when challenged.

I was clear from day one that if you did not wish to leave the ECHR, the way to securely and swiftly deliver our Rwanda partnership would be to block off the ECHR, the HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK. Our deal expressly referenced “notwithstanding clauses” to that effect.  So here Suella Braverman suggest that the UK should withdraw from ECHR, HRA and any other obligations which inhibit our ability to remove those with no right to be in the UK.  What safeguards did Suella Braverman suggest we replace these obligations with?

Your rejection of this path was not merely a betrayal of our agreement, but a betrayal of your promise to the nation that you would do “whatever it takes” to stop the boats.

At every stage of litigation I cautioned you and your team against assuming we would win. I repeatedly urged you to take legislative measures that would better secure us against the possibility of defeat. You ignored these arguments. You opted instead for wishful thinking as a comfort blanket to avoid having to make hard choices. This irresponsibility has wasted time and left the country in an impossible position. Isn't it the job of the Home Secretary to develop a Plan B?  Or is  Suella Braverman saying she was ordered not to do so?

If we lose in the supreme court, an outcome that I have consistently argued we must he prepared for, you will have wasted a year and an act of parliament, only to arrive back at square one. Worse than this, your magical thinking – believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion – has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible plan B. I wrote to you on multiple occasions setting out what a credible plan B would entail, and making clear that unless you pursue these proposals, in the event of defeat there is no hope of flights this side of an election. I received no reply from you. Suella Braverman should publish her plan B.

I can only surmise that this is because you have no appetite for doing what is necessary, and therefore no real intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British people.

If, on the other hand, we win in the supreme court, because of the compromises that you insisted on in the Illegal Migration Act, the government will struggle to deliver our Rwanda partnership in the way that the public expects. The act is far from secure against legal challenge. People will not be removed as swiftly as I originally proposed. The average claimant will be entitled to months of process, challenge, and appeal. Your insistence that rule 39 indications are binding in international law – against the views of leading lawyers, as set out in the House of Lords – will leave us vulnerable to being thwarted yet again by the Strasbourg court.

Another cause for disappointment – and the context for my recent article in the Times – has been your failure to rise to the challenge posed by the increasingly vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas’s terrorist atrocities of 7 October.

I have become hoarse urging you to consider legislation to ban the hate marches and help stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening community cohesion. Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalisation and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years. I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs. Rather than fully acknowledge the severity of this threat, your team disagreed with me for weeks that the law needed changing. Yes Suella Braverman they disagreed with you.

As on so many other issues, you sought to put off tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself. In doing so, you have increased the very real risk these marches present to everyone else.

In October of last year you were given an opportunity to lead our country. It is a privilege to serve and one we should not take for granted. Service requires bravery and thinking of the common good.

It is not about occupying the office as an end in itself.

Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently. So this is all down to the current PM, none of the previous PMs have any responsibility for any of the situations our country no finds itself in?

I may not have always found the right words, but I have always striven to give voice to the quiet majority that supported us in 2019. I have endeavoured to be honest and true to the people who put us in these privileged positions.  What are the facts that support your assertion about quiet majority?

I will, of course, continue to support the government in pursuit of policies which align with an authentic conservative agenda. As a promise that is so conditional as to be worthless.

Sincerely,

Suella Braverman