A former deputy prime minister and Conservative MP has attacked Suella Braverman’s latest plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as “unconservative” and “dictatorial”, as the former home secretary continues to divide her party with her outspoken interventions.
Damian Green, who also served as an immigration minister, said on Friday that Braverman’s proposal to pass a law to get around the legal obstacles to the Rwanda plan identified earlier this week by the supreme court would be “the most unconservative proposal I’ve ever heard”.
Green was responding to an article by the former home secretary in Friday’s Telegraph, in which she suggested parliament should pass a new emergency law to override several pieces of domestic and international legislation. The article is the former home secretary’s latest intervention as part of what allies say will be a “grid of shit” for the government after her dismissal on Monday.
Green told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “This is the most unconservative proposal I’ve ever heard. You know conservatives believe in a democratic country, run by the rule of law. Dictators like Xi [Jinping] and [Vladimir] Putin would prefer to have the state completely untrammelled by any law.”
He added: “Defending the principle that governments have to obey the law is really important for conservatives, perhaps particularly at times of heightened political change.”
Braverman used the Telegraph article on Friday to call for a five-point plan to get the government’s long-delayed plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda off the ground, after the supreme court ruling on Wednesday that it is unlawful.
She argued first that the government should agree measures with Rwanda to ensure that refugees did not get sent back to their countries of origin.
Second, she said MPs should pass a new law to override the European convention on human rights, the Human Rights Act and any other relevant piece of legislation.
Third, she argued asylum seekers should be deported within days of arrival.
She said new arrivals should be detained until deportation and that parliament should sit over Christmas to pass the new laws.
The article is the latest in a series of public statements from Braverman that have caused a headache for the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
Two weeks ago she defended a plan to restrict the use of tents by homeless people, saying that sleeping rough was a “lifestyle choice”. She then engaged in a public row with the head of the Metropolitan police, Sir Mark Rowley, over whether he should ban a pro-Palestine march on Armistice Day. That culminated in a piece for the Times in which she accused the police of being biased in the way they handled public demonstrations.
Sunak finally sacked her as home secretary on Monday but she has continued to cause problems for him, writing a public letter accusing him of being weak and reneging on promises he made to her during his leadership campaign.
Sir David Normington, a former permanent secretary at the Home Office, said Braverman’s latest ideas on how to revive the Rwanda plan were unworkable.
“One of the things we keep hearing, and this is Suella Braverman’s latest idea, is that we should remove all appeals, that we should close off all routes,” he said on Friday. “I really don’t think that that is possible. I think in the end, the supreme court wouldn’t allow that.”
Allies of the former home secretary say she will make more public statements in the coming days, as critics accuse her of preparing the ground for a leadership bid should the Conservatives lose the next election.
They have also defended her latest proposals, saying they constitute the best way to meet the prime minister’s pledge to stop small boats crossing the Channel.
Sir Simon Clarke, a former cabinet minister, told the BBC: “I’m in favour of doing what is required to make this policy deliverable. And I think that the point at this stage is that it is for the government now to set out why what Suella is saying is not required in order to make sure that flights can leave for Rwanda.”
