SACKED former home secretary Suella Braverman has launched a scathing attack on her former boss – accusing him of having “manifestly and repeatedly failed” to deliver on commitments.
In a three-page letter to the Prime Minister, Braverman said: “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.”
The Fareham MP addressed the controversies that immediately preceded her exit from Government, which included saying homeless people slept in tents as a "lifestyle choice" and her incendiary comments about the police with regards to pro-Palestine protests.
"Britain is at a turning point in our history and faces a threat of radicalisation and extremism in a way not seen for 20 years," Braverman wrote.
"I regret to say that your response has been uncertain, weak, and lacking in the qualities of leadership that this country needs.
"Rather than fully acknowledge the severity of this threat, your team disagreed with me for weeks that the law needed changing.
"As on so many other issues, you sought to put off tough decisions in order to minimise political risk to yourself. In doing so, you have increased the very real risk these marches present to everyone else."
Braverman also acknowledged she "may not have always found the right words".
She claimed the UK Government repeatedly failed to prepare for the possibility they may lose a landmark Supreme Court case, where justices are due to rule on the lawfulness of the Rwanda policy on Wednesday.
The letter sets out four “key” areas where Braverman said the PM had “failed to deliver”:
- Reduce overall migration
- Make efforts to ignore the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Human Rights Act to “stop the boats”
- Deliver the Northern Ireland Protocol and the promised “bonfire” of retained EU law
- Introduce “unequivocal” guidance to schools that “protects biological sex, safeguards single-sex spaces and empowers parents to know what is being taught to their children”
Braverman said: "You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies.
"Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so.
"Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises."
Much of the three-page letter is devoted to Sunak’s attitude towards her Rwanda plan – over which she accused the PM of “magical thinking”.
“At every stage of litigation I cautioned you and your team against assuming we would win," Braverman wrote.
"I repeatedly urged you to take legislative measures that would better secure us against the possibility of defeat.
“You ignored these arguments. You opted instead for wishful thinking as a comfort blanket to avoid having to make hard choices.
“This irresponsibility has wasted time and left the country in an impossible situation.
“If we lose in the Supreme Court, an outcome that I have consistently argued we must be prepared for, you will have wasted a year and an Act of Parliament, only to arrive at square one.
“Worse than this, your magical thinking – believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion – has meant you have failed to prepare any sort of credible ‘Plan B’.”
She added: “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.”
