David Cameron symbolises “the politics of yesterday”, the former chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng has said, as rightwing Conservative discontent overshadowed the former prime minister’s return to cabinet.
“David has to say very early on that he accepts Brexit because otherwise the suspicion is that somehow he’s going to be close to the EU,” Kwarteng told GB News. “He’s got to do a speech or say something to signal that he’s accepted Brexit,” he added, saying that the Conservative party was “in a very difficult place now” because of divisions.
“Essentially you’re bringing back someone who has been off the bench for seven years and actually David Cameron symbolises the politics that was very much of yesterday: he hasn’t been in government for seven years.”
Criticism of Cameron’s return, which Kwarteng described as a “gamble”, was also expressed by other senior Conservative figures including Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon Clarke and John Redwood.
There are also mounting divisions ahead of the UK supreme court’s ruling on Wednesday on whether or not government plans to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda are lawful. Clarke, another former cabinet minister, said on Tuesday he agreed with criticism by the former business secretary Rees-Mogg of Rishi Sunak’s sacking of Suella Braverman as home secretary and the implications of that for the aftermath of the ruling.
Rees-Mogg made a distinction between Braverman’s desire for the UK to overturn Britain’s obligations under an article of the convention and the position of her replacement, James Cleverly, who has defied the Tory right by arguing that the UK should remain a signatory of European convention on human rights (ECHR).
The MP and GB News presenter told BBC Two’s Newsnight: “In the public mind she was in favour of controlling migration and being tough on crime and dealing with marches that were intimidating people. The prime minister has now put himself on the side of not controlling migration and not being tough on crime. For a Conservative minister that is a strange position to be in.”
Rees-Mogg claimed that the Conservatives were in danger of losing votes to the Reform UK party and said the champagne would be flowing at its headquarters. Its leader, Richard Tice, claimed on Tuesday that hundreds of new recruits had already come over to it after a day of what he described as “Tory chaos”.
Another Tory MP, Andrea Jenkyns, published a formal letter of no confidence in the prime minister on Monday. A noted supporter of Boris Johnson who served as schools minister under Liz Truss, she tweeted her letter to the party’s backbench 1922 Committee, saying: “Enough is enough … It is time for Rishi Sunak to go and replace him with a ‘real’ Conservative party leader.”
The new Conservative party chair, Richard Holden, said Sunak’s reshuffle had created a “very broad team”. Asked about the appointment of Cameron as foreign secretary, he said: “You always want to bring in some experience and, also, you want to bring in some younger people like Laura Trott, one of the new cabinet ministers, as well.”
He declined to give a view on Braverman’s sacking but told Sky News she was “totally entitled to her opinions”.
