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Suella Braverman has admitted sending official documents from her government email to her personal email address on six separate occasions.

In a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee, she apologised again for breaching security rules and set out her version of the events leading to her resignation under former prime minister Liz Truss.

A review undertaken by the Home Office confirmed she had used her personal email address to send an official government document, and in her letter Ms Braverman added: “I had sent official documents from my government email to my personal email address on six occasions.

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“The review confirmed that all of these occasions occurred in circumstances when I was conducting Home Office meetings virtually or related to public lines to take in interviews.”

Ms Braverman is expected to make a statement in the House of Commons this afternoon.

She is facing a second scandal amid the worsening Channel crisis and overcrowding at the Manston processing centre.

Labour have accused her of being silent on the issue as there were still questions over her “own security breaches”.

In her letter, the home secretary insisted the four-page document containing high level migration policy proposals did not contain any information relating to national security and was not marked top secret.

She said the reason for sending the documents to her personal phone was because she was often joining meetings virtually and while in transit.

Ms Braverman said: “It was not possible to use a single device to conduct the meetings and read the documents at the same time.

“Therefore, I had occasionally and exceptionally emailed them to my personal email account so that I could read the documents in order to conduct essential government business.”

Mrs Braverman’s team maintain – as she wrote in her resignation letter – that she flagged the incident rapidly and brought it to the attention of the cabinet secretary, Simon Case.

Others have claimed the cabinet secretary did not find out about the breach from Mrs Braverman.

Here is the timeline of events as she has laid them out in her letter:

-7.25am: Sent an email from personal account to Rt Hon Sir John Hayes and his secretary, but entered an incorrect address, sending document to someone else “unintentionally and unknowingly”
– 9am: Went into back-to-back meetings
– 10am: Checked personal emails, saw reply to someone she does not know saying ‘this has been sent to me in error’ – “realised I had made a mistake”
– 10.02am: Replied saying “please delete and ignore. Thanks”, then went into meetings
– 11.20am: Met two constituents
– 11.50am: Bumped into then Chief Whip Wendy Morton and Andrew Percy MP “by coincidence” who said my email had gone to a member of his staff and “he was concerned”
– 12pm: Returned to parliamentary office to “take action regarding my mistake”

Ms Braverman said when she realised she had sent the email to a staffer of MP Andrew Percy by accident, she “decided to inform my officials as soon as practicable”.

But before informing the civil service, she said she bumped into the chief whip and Mr Percy “by coincidence”, who raised his concerns to her.

After this meeting, Ms Braverman asked a special adviser to tell her private secretary what happened, and the issue was then flagged to the cabinet secretary and prime minister’s office.

The home secretary insisted: “As a result of my actions, the cabinet secretary was told for the first time.”

She added: “Separately, and unbeknownst to me at the time, the chief whip had also notified the prime minister of this issue. This was not known to me until after these events.”

‘More unanswered questions, more confusion and more chaos’

Labour said the letter “leaves more unanswered questions” over Ms Braverman’s “irresponsible conduct” – including whether the prime minister ignored the cabinet secretary’s advice in reappointing her.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said it is also “astonishing” the home secretary “needed to seek an additional briefing on ‘what constitutes appropriate use of government and personal IT’.

“This therefore leaves more unanswered questions, more confusion and more chaos from the home secretary and the government. It shows why Rishi Sunak was so irresponsible in reappointing her to her post,” she said.

Liberal Democrat chief whip Wendy Chamberlain said the home secretary “has admitted breaking the rules on an industrial scale” and “must resign now”.

PM ‘has full confidence’ in home secretary

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Yvette Cooper speaks to Sophy Ridge on Sunday about security concerns regarding the home secretary.

The letter follows days of criticism levelled at new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for reappointing Ms Braverman, despite promising to govern “with integrity” when he took office.

Labour has been urging the government to publish its assessments of Ms Braverman’s security breach, with leader Sir Keir Starmer accusing Mr Sunak of brokering a “grubby deal trading security for support” in the Tory leadership contest, which he won after receiving Ms Braverman’s backing.

In the letter, Ms Braverman said she had apologised to Mr Sunak when he entered No 10 and publicly repeated that apology.

“In my appointment discussion with the new prime minister, I raised this mistake and apologised to him, and would like to do so again here,” she said.

“I also gave the prime minister assurances that I would not use my personal email for official business and reaffirmed my understanding of and adherence to the ministerial code.”

Following the letter’s publication, Downing Street said the PM has full confidence in the home secretary.

The spokesman also said Mr Sunak was reassured Ms Braverman understood the subsequent advice given to her.

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they’re also battling with another problem

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Financial markets were always going to respond to Trump tariffs but they're also battling with another problem

Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.

The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.

The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.

Tariffs latest: FTSE 100 suffers biggest daily drop since COVID

Financial investors had been gradually re-calibrating their expectations of Donald Trump over the past few months.

Hopes that his actions may not match his rhetoric were dashed on Wednesday as he imposed sweeping tariffs on the US’ trading partners, ratcheting up protectionism to a level not seen in more than a century.

Markets were always going to respond to that but they are also battling with another problem: the lack of certainty when it comes to Trump.

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He is a capricious figure and we can only guess his next move. Will he row back? How far is he willing to negotiate and offer concessions?

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These are massive unknowns, which are piled on to uncertainty about how countries will respond.

China has already retaliated and Europe has indicated it will go further.

That will compound the problems for the global economy and undoubtedly send shivers through the markets.

Much is yet to be determined, but if there’s one thing markets hate, it’s uncertainty.

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

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Court confirms sacking of South Korean president who declared martial law

South Korea’s constitutional court has confirmed the dismissal of President Yoon Suk Yeol, who was impeached in December after declaring martial law.

His decision to send troops onto the streets led to the country’s worst political crisis in decades.

The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.

The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.

Demonstrators who stayed overnight near the constitutional court wait for the start of a rally calling for the president to step down. Pic: AP
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Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP

Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.

The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.

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The Constitutional Court is under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement of the impeachment trial. Pic: AP
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The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP

After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.

He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.

His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.

The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.

South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.

Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.

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Stock markets suffer sharp drops after Donald Trump announces sweeping tariffs

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Stock markets suffer sharp drops after Donald Trump announces sweeping tariffs

Stock markets around the world fell on Thursday after Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs – with some economists now fearing a recession.

The US president announced tariffs for almost every country – including 10% rates on imports from the UK – on Wednesday evening, sending financial markets reeling.

While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.

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All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.

A person works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Monday, March 31, 2025. Pic: AP
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The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP

By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.

Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.

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Worst one-day losses since COVID

As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.

The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.

It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.

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The latest numbers on tariffs

‘Trust in President Trump’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.

“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”

Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”

He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.

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How is the world reacting to Trump’s tariffs?

Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’

The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.

He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.

Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.

He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”

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It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.

Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.

It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.

He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”

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