PM’s dilemma: risk showdown with Tory right or back home secretary accused of breaking ministerial code again
Rishi Sunak faces a stick-or-twist moment after his home secretary was accused of asking civil servants to help her avoid a speeding fine by arranging a private driving awareness course.
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The Sunday Times, which broke the story along with the Mail on Sunday, said the revelations dating back to when Suella Braverman was attorney general “raise questions about whether she breached the ministerial code by directing civil servants to help with her personal affairs, and whether she has complied with the Nolan principles of public life – seven ethical standards which anyone working in public life is expected to adhere to”.
If found guilty it would be the second time in less than a year that the home secretary had breached the ministerial code, having resigned during Liz Truss’s premiership only to be reinstated by Sunak.
In the wake of Braverman’s thinly veiled leadership pitch at last week’s National Conservatism Conference, the prime minister now has a choice to make. Launching a standards inquiry may lead to the removal of the new darling of the Tory right and destabilise Sunak’s position within the party, while sticking by his beleaguered home secretary could harm his popularity among the wider electorate.
What did the papers say?
A brutal war of words has raged ever since the story broke on Sunday, with allies of the home secretary telling The Sun the row was a “political witch-hunt” designed to undermine her hardline stance to bring down net migration.
The Telegraph said: “There has been speculation in Whitehall that Braverman might be willing to resign if she feels immigration is not being tackled. However, the claims about her conduct would lessen the impact of such a move.”
“Inside government, the story is viewed as unhelpful, but the jury’s out on whether it really counts as career-ending,” said The Spectator’s political editor Katy Balls.
“There are plenty of Tory MPs who would like Braverman out of the cabinet – with MPs on the left of the party taking issue with her rhetoric and seeing her as unruly,” she wrote. “However, there are many MPs to the right who would view the departure of Braverman as proof Sunak was going soft on the key issue of immigration.”
The furore means that, “whatever next step Sunak takes, he is likely to anger one wing of his party”, said Balls.
“It’s hard to envision Sunak removing his home secretary and risking a showdown” with the right of his party, Sky News said. But as Stephen Bush, associate editor of the Financial Times, said: “Many in Westminster believe that Braverman will at some point resign or provoke Sunak into sacking her to avoid damaging her own standing on the right of the party, and anything that muddies the terms of her exit from the cabinet may muddy the political impact of her resignation.”
“Whether to order an inquiry comes down to whether Sunak is willing to stake more political capital on keeping a leading voice of the Tory right in the tent,” agreed Politico.
The problem, said BBC News, is that “having promised on day one of his job that he would run a government with the highest levels of transparency and integrity, any slight suggestion that his team’s behaviour is less than perfect creates political pain for him”.
While his “Trump-like entitled Home Secretary deserves to be sacked immediately”, said the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire, “this car crash is really the fault of a prime minister who did a dirty deal with Silly Suella, as many Tory critics brand her, to be gifted the keys to Number 10”.
“Doing the decent thing and showing her the car door, Sunak gives the opposition another scalp and tacitly admits he boobed,” Maguire said. “Keep her and voters will punish harder a Tory elite behaving as if it’s special, privileged, owed special treatment.”
What next?
BBC political editor Chris Mason, who accompanied the prime minister to the G7 summit in Japan, said Sunak’s current stance amounts to a “holding position” with “no endorsement of Braverman – but no referral to the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests either”.
Sunak has said he will consult his ethics adviser Laurie Magnus on his return to the UK, although, noted Mason, “we already know Sunak’s view on Braverman breaching the ministerial code before he was PM, because he reappointed her as home secretary after she had done just that and resigned”.
Braverman is due to answer Home Office questions in the Commons this afternoon after which is the PM’s G7 statement. “Barring any urgent questions in between – and some MPs are pushing for one on Braverman herself – herein lies a classic dilemma for the home secretary. Stay in the chamber by the PM’s side… or hurry off out of sight?” said Politico.
Things could move fast and it is hard to say whether Sunak with adopt a harsh or lenient approach. “After a bumpy few weeks for Tory unity in the aftermath of disappointing local election results, losing a Home Secretary would be a brave move,” concluded Balls in The Spectator.
