Suella Braverman hints at leadership ambitions with unusually personal pitch to Tory right
Given Suella Braverman is a senior government minister, her speech at the National Conservatism conference was heavy on the Suella stuff and light on the government stuff.
After being interrupted by two protesters (“write a letter” came the shout from the crowd), the home secretary opened with a lengthy explanation of her own backstory and how her family initially came to the UK.
“55 years ago, on a cold February morning in 1968, an Asian man, not yet 21, stepped off a plane at London Heathrow. There was no family to meet him, nor any friends. He had nothing to his name,” the home secretary said.
Affecting and stirring, yes – but in the grammar of political speeches, passages like this are more associated with Tory leadership contenders than sitting cabinet ministers.
What followed was an at times deeply philosophical and personal analysis of the conservative cause.
Soundbites were well-written, well-prepared and well-targeted to the right-wing audience in the hall and in her party.
“Those of us advancing unfashionable facts are beaten over the head with fashionable fictions,” she said – before giving the example of the “ethnicity of grooming gang perpetrators” and “the fact that 100% of women do not have a penis”.
There were references to William F Buckley, Michael Oakeshott and Irving Kristol – doyens of the conservative intellectual movement.
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Home sec’s double interruption
The “mutilation” of our children by “radical gender ideology” was railed against and the virtues of the family unit praised.
One of the few references to government policy came in the home secretary’s well-publicised comments about levels of legal migration.
But even here, this felt like a campaigning call to influence the position of ministers, rather than remarks from the person who literally has control over the policy.
On this, the practical and political backdrop matters.
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Legal migration is running at record levels, with data due later this month that may show up to one million more people arriving in the country compared to those leaving.
While the Cameron-era promise of getting numbers down to the tens of thousands has been scrapped, the government is still committed to reducing overall levels.
But there’s something of a push and pull in the cabinet over how to do that.
Plans to put limits on the number of family members overseas students can bring with them ran into resistance from the education secretary and chancellor over concerns that it may put off the brightest and best from coming to the country.
Economic issues loom large as well, with businesses depending on overseas labour to fill vacancy gaps.
Ms Braverman unsuccessfully ran to be party leader in 2022
In this context, the home secretary’s remarks can be seen as a not-so-subtle flexing of her own political muscle on an issue that has the potential to damage her and the government.
But something else could be going on as well.
It was only a few days ago that another gathering of right-wing conservatives took place in Bournemouth, with the aim of discussing the way forward for the Tory party.
The result of the next general election is still anything but certain.
But if Rishi Sunak is to lose, it seems clear that those behind these conferences will want their vision to figure heavily in the debate about the party’s future.
After Suella Braverman’s speech, it’s not hard to see who many in this movement would want as their figurehead.
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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Read more from Sky News:
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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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