It was about 5pm on Wednesday, as rumours began to spread like wildfire around the palace of Westminster about a big ministerial resignation, that Tory MPs found themselves asking an all too familiar question. Was authority draining away from their leader and prime minister?
Suella Braverman, recently dismissed from the cabinet by Rishi Sunak for serial disloyalty, had just delivered a stinging personal statement to the House of Commons, surrounded by a few supporters on the party’s right wing, including Liz Truss. The group had nodded enthusiastically as the ousted home secretary said that Sunak’s latest plan for sending asylum seekers to Rwanda – to be unveiled a few hours later – must override human rights laws in order to work, and warned that if it did not, the Tories faced electoral “oblivion”.
