The Tories now face two massive tests

Rishi Sunak’s appointment of David Cameron as Foreign Secretary might have distracted attention from the dismissal of Suella Braverman for a day, but he got little more time than that. On Tuesday afternoon, the former home secretary published a bombshell letter to the Prime Minister, accusing him of betraying “your promise to the nation that you would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the boats”. 

Mrs Braverman detailed the pledges that she claimed she had secured from Mr Sunak as part of agreeing to back him in last year’s Tory leadership contest, including stricter restrictions on migration, limits to the application of human rights law, and stronger guidance on trans matters in school. She said that the Prime Minister had “manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies”.

There can be little doubt of Mrs Braverman’s intention in launching such a personal and detailed attack on the Prime Minister. It can hardly be seen as anything other than a challenge to Mr Sunak’s leadership – and on the eve of the Supreme Court’s crucial Rwanda judgment. Indeed, she suggested that even a victory in the court could represent a failure of the Government’s deportation policy. Thanks to the compromises in the Illegal Migration Act, she wrote, “people will not be removed as swiftly as I originally proposed”. 

Where does this leave the Conservative Party now? Mrs Braverman is unlikely to be able to precipitate a vote of no confidence in Mr Sunak, or engineer a coup of the kind that brought down Liz Truss. Tory MPs are acutely aware that another change of leader would look farcical to the public, and many are opting to abandon Parliament altogether by standing down at the next election. It is also questionable how much support Mrs Braverman retains on the Conservative benches.

But the former home secretary’s intervention does make life significantly harder for the Prime Minister. Indeed, the great danger for the Conservatives is that it increases the perception that the party is in a state of perpetual chaos, incapable of governing on behalf of the nation because it is so obsessed with its own disputes. The opinion polls are bad enough already without another bout of Tory civil war. 

Many Conservative voters will also agree with parts of Mrs Braverman’s analysis. They have been left horrified by the pro-Palestinian marches, with their open displays of anti-Semitic hatred and their glorification of terror. They concur with Mrs Braverman’s assessment of the police as playing favourites with particular groups of activists. But more broadly, they feel that the Government is too shy about advancing conservative causes, too cautious about defending British values, and too slow to react to emerging crises.

Rhetorically, at least, the Government appears to understand this. In recent months, it has also made some moves to reassure Tory voters that it is on their side – notably the Prime Minister’s moderation of extreme net zero targets. But in the coming days it will face two big tests of whether it is capable of addressing Conservative voters’ other concerns – and proving Mrs Braverman wrong.

Wednesday’s Supreme Court judgment is the first. Stopping the boats has taken on even greater importance for the Government given the damning evidence in recent weeks that parts of the existing population have not been fully integrated – and, in fact, seem to despise Britain and all it stands for. 

Next week’s Autumn Statement is the next. It cannot be another missed opportunity. Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, has expressed caution about his ability to make big changes to tax and public spending, but it should alarm the Government that, according to some polls, the public thinks Labour is the party more likely to cut taxes. 

Yesterday, we said that the Prime Minister needed to explain the rationale behind his reshuffle – and show what he was hoping to achieve beyond a few favourable headlines. That has become even more pressing in light of Mrs Braverman’s intervention.