Closing summary
Suella Braverman has launched an astonishing personal attack on Rishi Sunak, describing the prime minister as weak and dishonest and claiming he reneged on promises to push through a series of controversial policy pledges. In a brutal three-page letter published a day after she was sacked as home secretary, Braverman warned Sunak that she now intends to spearhead a Tory rebellion over the government’s Rwanda plan. “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,” she wrote.
In her letter, Braverman said that Sunak had failed to prepare a credible backup plan and had ignored her suggestion – believed to be emergency legislation to change domestic law so that the government could ignore the ruling and the flights could go ahead. “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,” she added.
Downing Street has issued its first response to the Suella Braverman letter, which does not include a denial of the claims she is making about Rishi Sunak going back on promises he made to secure Braverman’s backing for the Tory leadership last autumn. A No 10 spokesperson says: “The prime minister was proud to appoint a strong, united team yesterday focused on delivering for the British people. The prime minister believes in actions not words. He is proud that this government has brought forward the toughest legislation to tackle illegal migration this country has seen and has subsequently reduced the number of boat crossings by a third this year. And whatever the outcome of the supreme court tomorrow, he will continue that work. The PM thanks the former home secretary for her service.”
Dozens of Conservative MPs are poised to demand that the government quits the European convention on human rights, a move resisted by senior cabinet ministers, if the UK’s highest court rules against sending asylum seekers to Rwanda on Wednesday. Home Office insiders said the government had no plan B in the event of losing in the supreme court, suggesting that ministers were “panicked” over the potential outcome. They warned it was highly unlikely that flights to Rwanda would be able to take off before February even if they won.
Rightwing Conservative MPs have accused Rishi Sunak of abandoning voters who brought the party to power in 2019 amid a backlash against his reshuffle and polling suggesting public opposition to David Cameron’s return. Unhappiness with Sunak’s reshuffle, particularly the sacking of Suella Braverman as home secretary, prompted a group of predominantly “red wall” MPs to issue a scathing rebuke of the prime minister and the pro-European credentials of his new foreign secretary.
Keir Starmer will resist pressure from his MPs to back a ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday in a move that could trigger one of the most significant rebellions of his leadership. The Labour leader is backing an amendment to the king’s speech that will criticise how Israel has conducted its military campaign. But it will fall short of calling for the ceasefire that nearly a quarter of his parliamentary party wants.
After Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle, men hold the top four positions in government for the first time since 2010. Liz Truss’s ministry was notable for initially having no white men serving in the great offices of state for the first time in British political history, with Kwasi Kwarteng becoming the first black chancellor. Downing Street said on Tuesday that it was not focused on “tick-box diversity” and the prime minister was “clear that its actions and tangible impacts on the public that matters”. Sunak’s press secretary said women were getting senior jobs elsewhere in government, and a lot of women had risen up the ranks.
The UK’s business and trade secretary has signed a deal to increase trade with Florida, the British government’s latest pact with a single American state as it awaits a broader, post-Brexit US free trade agreement. The memorandum of understanding, signed on Tuesday by Kemi Badenoch and the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, is the seventh deal between the UK and individual US states. The UK said the deal would focus on space, financial technology, artificial intelligence and legal services.
The British government appears to have withdrawn an assertion made by the former prime minister Boris Johnson that the international criminal court has no jurisdiction in Israel, amid a wider western shift to more pointed criticism of the way Israel is conducting its campaign to remove Hamas from Gaza. In a statement to MPs on Tuesday, the Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said: “It is not for ministers to seek to state where the ICC has jurisdiction; that is for the chief prosecutor. The chief prosecutor has not been silent on this matter, and I am sure he will continue to express his views.”
The UK is being pressed to help provide more evidence against suspects involved in protests outside the Indian high commission in London in March. The pressure came as the new UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, met the Indian external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, in one of his first bilateral meetings. Jaishankar is backing demands from the Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA) for further cooperation over those involved in the violence. The police handling of the demonstration and its subsequent investigation has become a raw nerve in Indian-British relations, but both sides deny it is acting as a brake on the Indian-British free trade talks.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
The UK is being pressed to help provide more evidence against suspects involved in protests outside the Indian high commission in London in March.
The pressure came as the new UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, met the Indian external affairs minister, S Jaishankar, in one of his first bilateral meetings. Jaishankar is backing demands from the Indian National Investigation Agency (NIA) for further cooperation over those involved in the violence.
The police handling of the demonstration and its subsequent investigation has become a raw nerve in Indian-British relations, but both sides deny it is acting as a brake on the Indian-British free trade talks.
Cameron is enthusiastic about relations with India and sought during his premiership to deepen ties, inviting the Indian PM, Narendra Modi, on a three-day state visit in 2015.
