Controversially, Suella Braverman, British Interior Minister, was sacked by Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, on Monday November 13, many British media report. “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve” as interior minister, Braverman said after her dismissal, according to the BBC. “I will have more to say in due course. »
“Today, Rishi Sunak is strengthening his government team to implement long-term decisions for a better future,” the ruling Conservative Party soberly communicated on X. It was Foreign Minister James Cleverly who was named to replace Suella Braverman, inside. In the morning, James Cameron, former Prime Minister, visited 10 Downing Street.
Such a reshuffle has been expected for weeks as the Prime Minister, in Downing Street for just over a year, seeks to relaunch and prepare for parliamentary elections due next year and no later than 2025. His party, in power for almost 14 years, is far behind Labor in the polls.
The ousting of Suella Braverman comes after comments made on the demonstrations in support of civilians in Gaza which she had described as “hate marches”, Monday October 30, before accusing the police of being more lax with the demonstrators from both the left and the right, in the Times, more than a week later. A publication which had not received the agreement of Downing Street, contrary to the usual rules.
These comments were added to a series of controversies provoked in recent months by the very right-wing 43-year-old minister: she had described the arrivals of refugees as an “invasion” and warned of a migratory “hurricane”, and more recently believed that the homeless slept in tents in accordance with a “chosen lifestyle.”
The dismissal of this figure from the right wing of the majority, who willingly launches into cultural “wars”, risks causing turmoil within the conservatives and reinforcing divisions, some deputies supporting her having threatened to resign if she left the government.
Several calls for resignation
Friday evening, November 10, she returned to her comments by affirming that she “totally supported” the police, but several political leaders accused her of adding fuel to the fire before the procession took place, until demand his departure from the government, like Scottish Prime Minister Humza Yousaf. “The extreme right was encouraged by the Minister of the Interior (…) They are now attacking the police on Armistice Day [in reference to the celebrations of November 11] (…) The position of the Minister of the Interior is untenable. She must resign,” he wrote on X, Saturday, November 11.
Bringing together nearly 300,000 people on November 11, 100,000 on October 21 and tens of thousands on October 28, the London marches resulted in several hundred arrests. But, for the most part, these marches took place peacefully, with demonstrators mostly brandishing “Free Palestine” signs or demanding “a ceasefire.”
Among the arrests at the demonstration on Saturday November 11, nationalist counter-protesters, notably from the English Defense League, who came in “hundreds”, according to the police, including Tommy Robinson, founder of the far-right group EDL.
