Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak in full after being sacked as residence secretary

Suella Braverman has launched a scathing assault on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, accusing him of abandoning secret guarantees and saying “your plan is not working”.

The former residence secretary was sacked by the prime minister on Monday following a controversial article the place she accused the Met Police of bias towards left-wing protesters, and never lengthy after she steered the usage of tents by homeless people is “a lifestyle choice”.

After being sacked from her function Ms Braverman mentioned that she would say “more in due course”.

And in a scathing letter launched on Tuesday afternoon, the previous residence secretary attacked Mr Sunak’s document in authorities, accusing him of a “betrayal”.

This is her letter to the PM in full:

Dear prime minister,

Thank you in your cellphone name yesterday morning wherein you requested me to go away authorities. While disappointing, that is for the most effective.

It has been my privilege to function residence secretary and ship on what the British individuals have despatched us to Westminster to do.

I need to thank all of these civil servants, police, Border Force officers and safety professionals with whom I’ve labored and whose dedication to public security is exemplary.

I’m happy with what we achieved collectively: delivering on our manifesto pledge to recruit 20,000 new cops and enacting new legal guidelines such because the Public Order Act 2023 and the National Security Act 2023. I additionally led a programme of reform: on anti-social behaviour, police dismissals and requirements, cheap strains of enquiry, grooming gangs, knife crime, non-crime hate incidents and rape and severe sexual offences.

And I’m happy with the strategic adjustments that I used to be delivering to Prevent, Contest, severe organised crime and fraud. I’m certain that this work will proceed with the brand new ministerial staff.

As you understand, I accepted your supply to function residence secretary in October 2022 on sure situations. Despite you having been rejected by a majority of social gathering members throughout the summer time management contest and thus having no private mandate to be prime minister, I agreed to help you due to the agency assurances you gave me on key coverage priorities.

These had been, amongst different issues:

1. Reduce total authorized migration as set out within the 2019 manifesto by, inter alia, reforming the worldwide college students route and rising wage thresholds on work visas;
2. Include particular ‘however clauses’ into new laws to cease the boats, i.e. exclude the operation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), Human Rights Act (HRA) and different worldwide regulation that had up to now obstructed progress on this concern;
3. Deliver the Northern Ireland Protocol and Retained EU Law Bills of their then present kind and timetable:
4. Issue unequivocal statutory steering to colleges that protects organic intercourse, safeguards single intercourse areas, and empowers mother and father to know what’s being taught to their kids.

This was a doc with clear phrases to which you agreed in October 2022 throughout your second management marketing campaign. I trusted you. It is mostly agreed that my help was a pivotal consider successful the management contest and thus enabling you to change into prime minister.

For a yr, as residence secretary I’ve despatched quite a few letters to you on the important thing topics contained in our settlement, made requests to debate them with you and your staff, and put ahead proposals on how we’d ship these objectives. I labored up the authorized recommendation, coverage element and motion to tackle these points. This was typically met with equivocation, disregard and a scarcity of curiosity.

You have manifestly and repeatedly didn’t ship on each single certainly one of these key insurance policies. Either your distinctive type of presidency means you’re incapable of doing so. Or, as I have to certainly conclude now, you by no means had any intention of holding your guarantees.

These will not be simply pet pursuits of mine. They are what we promised the British individuals in our 2019 manifesto which led to a landslide victory. They are what individuals voted for within the 2016 Brexit referendum.

Our deal was no mere promise over dinner, to be discarded when handy and denied when challenged. I used to be clear from day one which in the event you didn’t want to depart the ECHR, the best way to securely and swiftly ship our Rwanda partnership can be to dam off the ECHR, the HRA and every other obligations which inhibit our skill to take away these with no proper to be within the UK. Our deal expressly referenced ‘however clauses’ to that impact.

Your rejection of this path was not merely a betrayal of our settlement, however a betrayal of your promise to the nation that you’d do “whatever it takes” to cease the boats.

At each stage of litigation I cautioned you and your staff in opposition to assuming we’d win. I repeatedly urged you to take legislative measures that may higher safe us in opposition to the potential for defeat.

You ignored these arguments. You opted as an alternative for wishful pondering as a consolation blanket to keep away from having to make laborious selections. This irresponsibility has wasted time and left the nation in an unattainable place.

If we lose within the Supreme Court, an end result that I’ve persistently argued we should be ready for, you’ll have wasted a yr and an Act of Parliament, solely to reach again at sq. one.

Worse than this, your magical pondering – believing that you may will your manner by this with out upsetting well mannered opinion has meant you could have failed to organize any type of credible ‘Plan B’.

I wrote to you on a number of events setting out what a reputable Plan B would entail, and making clear that until you pursue these proposals, within the occasion of defeat, there isn’t any hope of flights this aspect of an election. I acquired no reply from you.

I can solely surmise that it’s because you haven’t any urge for food for doing what is critical, and due to this fact no actual intention of fulfilling your pledge to the British individuals.

If, however, we win within the Supreme Court, due to the compromises that you simply insisted on within the Illegal Migration Act, the federal government will battle to ship our Rwanda partnership in the best way that the general public expects. The Act is much from safe in opposition to authorized problem.

People won’t be eliminated as swiftly as I initially proposed. The common claimant shall be entitled to months of course of, problem, and attraction. Your insistence that Rule 39 indications are binding in worldwide regulation – in opposition to the views of main legal professionals, as set out within the House of Lords will depart us susceptible to being thwarted but once more by the Strasbourg Court.

Another trigger for disappointment – and the context for my latest article in The Times – has been your failure to rise to the problem posed by the more and more vicious antisemitism and extremism displayed on our streets since Hamas’s terrorist atrocities of seven October.

I’ve change into hoarse urging you to contemplate laws to ban the hate marches and assist stem the rising tide of racism, intimidation and terrorist glorification threatening neighborhood cohesion. Britain is at a turning level in our historical past and faces a risk of radicalisation and extremism in a manner not seen for 20 years.

I remorse to say that your response has been unsure, weak, and missing within the qualities of management that this nation wants. Rather than absolutely acknowledge the severity of this risk, your staff disagreed with me for weeks that the regulation wanted altering.

As on so many different points, you sought to place off robust selections with a view to minimise political danger to your self. In doing so, you could have elevated the very actual danger these marches current to everybody else.

In October of final yr you got a possibility to guide our nation. It is a privilege to serve and one we should always not take without any consideration. Service requires bravery and pondering of the frequent good. It is just not about occupying the workplace as an finish in itself.

Someone must be trustworthy: your plan is just not working, now we have endured document election defeats, your resets have failed and we’re working out of time. You want to vary course urgently.

I’ll not have at all times discovered the precise phrases, however I’ve at all times striven to present voice to the quiet majority that supported us in 2019. I’ve endeavoured to be trustworthy and true to the individuals who put us in these privileged positions.

I’ll, after all, proceed to help the federal government in pursuit of insurance policies which align with an genuine conservative agenda.

Sincerely,
Suella Braverman
Rt Hon Suella Braverman KC MP
Member of Parliament for Fareham

In response, a No 10 spokesperson mentioned:

The prime minister was proud to nominate a robust, united staff yesterday centered on delivering for the British individuals.

The prime minister believes in actions not phrases. He is proud that this authorities has introduced ahead the hardest laws to sort out unlawful migration this nation has seen and has subsequently lowered the variety of boat crossings by a 3rd this yr. And regardless of the end result of the Supreme Court tomorrow, he’ll proceed that work.

The PM thanks the previous residence secretary for her service.