Rishi Sunak claims new cabinet ‘reflects a unified party’ as Suella Braverman and Michael Gove make shock comebacks
Rishi Sunak has reinstated Suella Braverman as home secretary only six days after she resigned, in a cabinet reshuffle which Downing Street said “reflects a unified party”.
Ms Braverman, a favourite of the Conservative right, stepped down last Wednesday after admitting to sending secure government information from her personal email and being accused of breaching the ministerial code.
Labour’s Yvette Cooper accused the new PM of putting “party before country” in reinstating her in one of the four great offices of state.
“Our national security and public safety are too important for this kind of chaos,” she said.
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Elsewhere in his new cabinet, Mr Sunak culled many of those who had featured in Ms Truss’s top team – including former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and former justice secretary Brandon Lewis – while rewarding his allies with cabinet roles.
His closest ally Oliver Dowden was rewarded with a promotion to Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, loyalist Mark Harper was handed the role of transport secretary and Mr Sunak’s leadership campaign manager Mel Stride was given the work and pensions brief.
But there was an element of continuity with the previous administration, with James Cleverly kept on as foreign secretary and Ben Wallace as defence secretary.
Mr Sunak also revived the careers of experienced frontbenchers including Dominic Raab and Michael Gove, who was sacked by Boris Johnson in the dying days of his government after urging him to stand down.
Mr Raab was named as deputy prime minister and justice secretary, roles he held under Mr Johnson before he was sacked by Ms Truss.
Mr Gove returns as levelling up secretary, a job he held before his dismissal.
Sir Gavin Williamson makes a surprise return as cabinet office minister without portfolio, having been kicked out of government in 2019 when he was defence secretary over a National Security Council leak and then sacked as education secretary in 2021 for his handling of the pandemic’s impact on schools.
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Suella Braverman returns to her role of home secretary
Another to return to the frontbenches is the former housing secretary Robert Jenrick who was appointed immigration minister.
Penny Mordaunt came out of the new cabinet as leader of the Commons, failing to win a promotion after she challenged Mr Sunak for the leadership.
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Mr Sunak confirmed he would be keeping Jeremy Hunt in position as chancellor in an attempt to reassure the financial markets after saying in his first speech outside Number 10 that he would fix the “mistakes” of his predecessor.
In a six-minute speech after he was officially appointed PM by King Charles, he said the UK was facing a “profound economic crisis” and prepared the nation for “difficult decisions” as he criticised his predecessor’s record.
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In his maiden address Rishi Sunak said: ‘I will fix mistakes’
A Number 10 source said that Mr Sunak’s cabinet “brings the talents of the party together”.
“It reflects a unified party and a cabinet with significant experience, ensuring that at this uncertain time there is continuity at the heart of government,” the source said.
“The hard work begins now and together, the prime minister’s new cabinet will deliver for the British people.”
On Tuesday evening, seeking to distance himself from Ms Truss, Mr Sunak spoke to both Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and the First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford.
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The PM said he “emphasised” their duty to work closely together, while Ms Sturgeon described the conversation as “constructive”.
His predecessor had not spoken to either leader during her brief spell in office.
Mr Sunak also spoke to US President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy in his first few hours as PM.
On Wednesday morning, Sky News understands the new PM will hold the first meeting of his cabinet before, at noon, he goes head-to-head with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
He will then begin work on tackling the cost of living crisis and rebalancing the country’s finances, with decisions needing to be quickly made on what extra help may be required to help the most vulnerable.
The new PM will need to confirm whether his government will be pressing ahead with its fiscal statement on Monday.
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How ‘profound’ are our economic woes?
Mr Sunak became the UK’s first PM of Asian heritage and the youngest for more than 200 years when he was asked to form a government by the King at Buckingham Palace.
He entered Downing Street after winning the Conservative leadership contest on Monday, after Mr Johnson and Ms Mordaunt withdrew before a single vote was cast.
Mr Johnson, who was tipped to make a comeback less than two months after resigning as PM, offered his congratulations to Mr Sunak after his Downing Street address.
It is expected that Mr Sunak will finalise his government on Wednesday by appointing junior ministers.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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