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Suella Braverman and Tory critics of the police are undermining public confidence in law enforcement and eroding trust in Britain’s system of democracy, according to heated WhatsApp exchanges among Conservative MPs leaked to Sky News.

The true scale of the civil war between Tory MPs over the policing of pro-Palestinian marches and behaviour of the home secretary is tonight revealed in dozens of private messages between them which lift the lid on a far greater scale of discontent in the party than is currently playing out in public.

The angry WhatsApp debate has led to angry exchanges between figures who both back and oppose Ms Braverman, with some accusing her Tory critics of helping Labour, while others are accused of inflaming the far right.

Politics latest: Sunak considers whether to sack Braverman

In one exchange, the Tory MP Karl McCartney attacked Bob Neill, the Tory MP who went public with his criticism of Mrs Braverman, saying he and other critics of the home secretary would be getting Christmas cards from the Labour shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper.

“You stretch our patience,” Mr McCartney declared.

On the other side of the debate, Jackie Doyle-Price said that Tory MPs should not ignore the fact there is a legitimate right to protest and added: “Colleagues making noise about them are simply advertising them and make them bigger as a consequence.”

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She later told Sky News she was more concerned about advertising the marches to the English Defence League and hard right “to kick up trouble”.

She said: “I wish as much attention was paid to my speeches as my WhatsApp messages.”

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Braverman asked if she will resign

Danny Kruger, the socially conservative MP and strong backer of Ms Braverman, weighed in firmly behind the home secretary.

He said it was entirely legitimate for the government and Tory MPs to comment on how the police operate.

“Ofc [of course] if they did enforce the law – eg against face coverings or racist changes – there would be serious disorder, and so they’d have a reason to request a ban. The only way to avoid disorder is to tolerate the intolerable, to allow the illegal.”

He said that it was no longer enough to have a “quiet word” with the police when there were issues and instead advocated for “proper challenge”.

The veteran Tory MP Bernard Jenkin made a firm intervention in the group against public criticism by Conservatives of the police, receiving support from a number of his colleagues.

Mr Jenkin, who has been a Tory MP since 1992, asked colleagues if he was the only one “who thinks it is it most unfortunate that the chief of Met Police is being placed under pressure from the government, which threatens to compromise public confidence in his operational independence?”

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‘Braverman used words I wouldn’t have used’

Read more:
Braverman meets Met chief amid Tory row over protest article
Met releases details for ‘significant’ operation across Remembrance weekend
Chancellor distances himself from Braverman’s criticism of Met

It comes following Ms Braverman’s explosive article in The Times on Wednesday, in which she accused the Met Police of having “double standards” on how it policed protests.

The testy exchange began when Jackie Doyle-Price, who served in government under David Cameron and Theresa May, argued with Sir John Hayes about whether protesting is a right or allowed.

Sir John is an arch-backer of Ms Braverman.

He said it was “so sad to see protests being allowed on the Remembrance weekend”.

Sir John said it was “wholly inappropriate” – and called on colleagues to “speak for the law-abiding, patriotic majority by saying so”.

Ms Doyle-Price emphasised protesting was a right and not something to be “allowed”.

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Some of those siding with Sir John included Danny Kruger, Michael Fabricant, Jill Mortimer and Mr McCartney.

William Wragg agreed with Mr Jenkin, as did Ms Doyle-Price, Tim Loughton and Mr Neill.

“I’ve had enough of this rubbish”, William Wragg said following the debate.

This was preceded by a warning not to conduct this discussion on WhatsApp because “some colleagues are untrustworthy disgraceful leakers”.

The messages leaked to Sky News are from a Tory MP WhatsApp group and were sent yesterday and today.

Ms Doyle-Price advised MPs to “express their views to whips and to the home secretary directly”, while Ms Mortimer warned about colleagues leaking messages sent on WhatsApp.

Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman
Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman
Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Leaked Tory MPs' WhatsApps
Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman
Tory MPs' WhatsApps on Braverman

Full WhatsApp exchanges

Here are the messages between Tory MPs that have been leaked to Sky News:

Wednesday 8 November

Sir John Hayes (22:55): So sad to see protests being allowed on the remembrance weekend. Wholly inapproriate (sic)… and we should speak for the law abiding, patriotic majority by saying so.

Thursday 9 November

Jackie Doyle-Price (09.07): There is a right to protest. They are not “allowed”. Colleagues making noise about them are simply advertising them and will make them bigger as a consequence.

Sir John Hayes (09:23): They have been “allowed” by the Chief Constable, who could have requested that they be stopped.

The legal right to protest has always been qualified by when, where and how, which is why organisers routinely deal with the police and local authorities.

Surely, most of our constituents will regard the remembrance weekend as a time for quiet, solemn reflection.

Sir Bernard Jenkin (09:28): Am I the only Conservative MP who thinks it is most unfortunate that Chief of Met Police is being placed under public pressure from the government, which threatens to compromise public confidence in his operational independence?

If he does now ban demonstrations, some will say he has given in to political pressure.

These conversations should be conducted in private, without undermining public confidence in policing in London.

William Wragg (09:29): No, you’re not the only one.

Danny Kruger (09:31): I didn’t notice us all staying quiet when the cops dragged off women at the Sarah Everard vigil, or allowed BLM to demonstrate with impunity. Ofc we and govt should comment on how the police operate. And note Home Sec isn’t calling for Met to request a ban (tho they should imo), just to enforce the law.

(09:35): (Ofc, if they did enforce the law – eg against face coverings or racist chants – there would be serious disorder, and so they’d have a reason to request a ban. The only way to avoid disorder is to tolerate the intolerable, to allow the illegal).

Jackie Doyle-Price (09:39): No you are not.

John Stevenson (09:39): Absolutely not.

Jonathan Djanogly (09:48): Police can’t ban protests. They can however place restrictions on them. The Everard case gave rise to the question arising when the placing of restrictions effectively gives the police the right to ban protest.

This has been compounded by recent legislation giving more powers to condition eg in relation to noise levels and protest nèar businesses etc.

The net result is that the police are increasingly being accused of political interference.

I don’t see this reversing unless we depoliticise the police engagement by moving to a N Ireland style Parade Commission whereby restrictions are placed by community reps, rather than the Police.

It seems to be working v well in N Ireland, where it is generally regarded to have depoliticised Police.

Bob Blackman adds Jill Mortimer, Tom Hunt and Brendan Clarke-Smith to the chat

Tim Loughton (10.01): You are not Bernard.

Danny Kruger (10:05): Here come the cavalry.

Bob Neill (10:08): Absolutely you are not Bernard,

Danny Kruger (10:14): Helpful thank you Jonathan. I don’t think we need non-political oversight of the police, the set-up now is right – we just need police to enforce the law equally.

Kit Malthouse (10:38): I defended the police in both those instances, as I did with the toppling of the statue and various other difficult operational situations. Yes they don’t always get it right, as they would freely admit, but as we scrutinise them, they deserve our respect don’t they?

Bob Blackman adds Robin Millar to the chat

Danny Kruger (10:50): I respect your consistency Kit and I remember you were very robust on the rioters in 2011 when I was still hugging hoodies… but times have changed and a quiet word behind closed doors won’t convince the public we are on their side and share their attitude to these disgraceful protests. What happened to ‘the police are the public’? So yes respect but also proper challenge.

Sir Bernard Jenkin (10:56): But this confrontational public discourse strikes me as another example of the fraying of the unwritten understandings on which the stability of our constitutional settlement rests, and which undermines public confidence in our system of government and democracy.

Finger pointing and blaming does not strengthen our institutions. It undermines public confidence in them, and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Also, I see no political advantage in it, if that’s the idea behind it.

Jackie Doyle-Price (10:59): There is no political advantage whatever. Running in front of an angry herd won’t stop Government from being held accountable for any trouble. Particularly when public comments have been so divisive.

Michael Fabricant (11:07): Did the Met ban a right wing rally back around 2011?

James Grundy (11:09): Yes, I think it was the EDL in Tower Hamlets if I recall?

Jill Mortimer (11:11): There was this too [shares link to story in Evening Standard over pro-Israel rally in Golders Green]

Michael Fabricant (11:11): So unlike the claims of the Met Police Commissioner who said we cannot, it seems we CAN ban marches after all. Or has the law changed since?

James Grundy (11:15): I think he claimed the threshold of risk hadn’t been reached rather than any change on the law, which is of course his decision, but given the very different approach to the Golders Green march Jill references above, it does seem inconsistent.

(11:16) *In the law sorry.

Jill Mortimer (11:17): It is consistent with the bigger scarier mob being allowed to have their march – isn’t that what reasonable people would call bullying?

James Grundy (11:17): A fair assessment Jill.

Jill Mortimer (11:18): It would seem that the aggressors win and those who actually just want peaceful reflection must remain silenced

Bob Blackman adds Marco Longhi to the chat

Karl McCartney (21:42): Really pleased with @Bob Neill and @Richard Graham’s helpful public carping in last 24hrs, (I’m sure the Christmas cards from Yvette Cooper will take pride of place amongst all their others)… but not as half-pleased as they obviously both are with themselves.

You stretch our patience. Just like the ‘ever popular’ [Anna] Soubry did.

Jackie Doyle-Price (21:48): I would advise colleagues to express their views to whips and to the Home Secretary directly.

Friday 10 November

Lee Anderson (08:10): You mean instead of to the press?

Virginia Crosbie (08:11): Yes please

Jill Mortimer (08:11): …and on WhatsApp because some colleagues are untrustworthy disgraceful leakers?

William Wragg (08:27): I’ve had enough of this rubbish

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One year of Starmer: Nine charts that tell us whether Labour’s first year has been a success or failure

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One year of Starmer: Nine charts that tell us whether Labour's first year has been a success or failure

It might feel like it’s been even longer for the prime minister at the moment, but it’s been a whole year since Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party won a historic landslide, emphatically defeating Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives and securing a 174-seat majority.

Over that time, Sir Keir and his party have regularly reset or restated their list of milestones, missions, targets and pledges – things they say they will achieve while in power (so long as they can get all their policies past their own MPs).

We’ve had a look at the ones they have repeated most consistently, and how they are going so far.

Overall, it amounts to what appears to be some success on economic metrics, but limited progress at best towards many of their key policy objectives.

From healthcare to housebuilding, from crime to clean power, and from small boats to squeezed budgets, here are nine charts that show the country’s performance before and after Labour came to power, and how close the government are to achieving their goals.

Keir Starmer leaves 10 Downing Street.
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Sir Keir Starmer has been in office for a year. Pic Reuters

Cost of living

On paper, the target that Labour have set themselves on improving living standards is by quite a distance the easiest to achieve of anything they have spoken about.

They have not set a specific number to aim for, and every previous parliament on record has overseen an increase in real terms disposable income.

The closest it got to not happening was the last parliament, though. From December 2019 to June 2024, disposable income per quarter rose by just £24, thanks in part to the energy crisis that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

By way of comparison, there was a rise of almost £600 per quarter during the five years following Thatcher’s final election victory in 1987, and over £500 between Blair’s 1997 victory and his 2001 re-election.

After the first six months of the latest government, it had risen by £144, the fastest start of any government going back to at least 1954. As of March, it had fallen to £81, but that still leaves them second at this stage, behind only Thatcher’s third term.

VERDICT: Going well, but should have been more ambitious with their target

Get inflation back to 2%

So, we have got more money to play with. But it might not always feel like that, as average prices are still rising at a historically high rate.

Inflation fell consistently during the last year and a half of Rishi Sunak’s premiership, dropping from a peak of 11.1% in October 2022 to exactly 2% – the Bank of England target – in June 2024.

It continued to fall in Labour’s first couple of months, but has steadily climbed back up since then and reached 3.4% in May.

When we include housing costs as well, prices are up by 4% in the last year. Average wages are currently rising by just over 5%, so that explains the overall improvement in living standards that we mentioned earlier.

But there are signs that the labour market is beginning to slow following the introduction of higher national insurance rates for employers in April.

If inflation remains high and wages begin to stagnate, we will see a quick reversal to the good start the government have made on disposable income.

VERDICT: Something to keep an eye on – there could be a bigger price to pay in years to come

‘Smash the gangs’

One of Starmer’s most memorable promises during the election campaign was that he would “smash the gangs”, and drastically reduce the number of people crossing the Channel to illegally enter the country.

More than 40,000 people have arrived in the UK in small boats in the 12 months since Labour came to power, a rise of over 12,000 (40%) compared with the previous year.

Labour have said that better weather in the first half of this year has contributed to more favourable conditions for smugglers, but our research shows crossings have also risen on days when the weather is not so good.

VERDICT: As it stands, it looks like “the gangs” are smashing the government

Reduce NHS waits

One of Labour’s more ambitious targets, and one in which they will be relying on big improvements in years to come to achieve.

Starmer says that no more than 8% of people will wait longer than 18 weeks for NHS treatment by the time of the next election.

When they took over, it was more than five times higher than that. And it still is now, falling very slightly from 41.1% to 40.3% over the 10 months that we have data for.

So not much movement yet. Independent modelling by the Health Foundation suggests that reaching the target is “still feasible”, though they say it will demand “focus, resource, productivity improvements and a bit of luck”.

VERDICT: Early days, but current treatment isn’t curing the ailment fast enough

Halve violent crime

It’s a similar story with policing. Labour aim to achieve their goal of halving serious violent crime within 10 years by recruiting an extra 13,000 officers, PCSOs and special constables.

Recruitment is still very much ongoing, but workforce numbers have only been published up until the end of September, so we can’t tell what progress has been made on that as yet.

We do have numbers, however, on the number of violent crimes recorded by the police in the first six months of Labour’s premiership. There were a total of 1.1m, down by 14,665 on the same period last year, a decrease of just over 1%.

That’s not nearly enough to reach a halving within the decade, but Labour will hope that the reduction will accelerate once their new officers are in place.

VERDICT: Not time for flashing lights just yet, but progress is more “foot patrol” than “high-speed chase” so far

Build 1.5m new homes

One of Labour’s most ambitious policies was the pledge that they would build a total of 1.5m new homes in England during this parliament.

There has not yet been any new official data published on new houses since Labour came to power, but we can use alternative figures to give us a sense of how it’s going so far.

A new Energy Performance Certificate is granted each time a new home is built – so tends to closely match the official house-building figures – and we have data up to March for those.

Those numbers suggest that there have actually been fewer new properties added recently than in any year since 2015-16.

Labour still have four years to deliver on this pledge, but each year they are behind means they need to up the rate more in future years.

If the 200,000 new EPCs in the year to March 2025 matches the number of new homes they have delivered in their first year, Labour will need to add an average of 325,000 per year for the rest of their time in power to achieve their goal.

VERDICT: Struggling to lay solid foundations

Clean power by 2030

Another of the more ambitious pledges, Labour’s aim is for the UK to produce 95% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

They started strong. The ban on new onshore wind turbines was lifted within their first few days of government, and they delivered support for 131 new renewable energy projects in the most recent funding round in September.

But – understandably – it takes time for those new wind farms, solar farms and tidal plants to be built and start contributing to the grid.

In the year leading up to Starmer’s election as leader, 54% of the energy on the UK grid had been produced by renewable sources in the UK.

That has risen very slightly in the year since then, to 55%, with a rise in solar and biomass offsetting a slight fall in wind generation.

The start of this year has been unusually lacking in wind, and this analysis does not take variations in weather into account. The government target will adjust for that, but they are yet to define exactly how.

VERDICT: Not all up in smoke, but consistent effort is required before it’s all sunshine and windmills

Fastest economic growth in the G7

Labour’s plan to pay for the improvements they want to make in all the public services we have talked about above can be summarised in one word: “growth”.

The aim is for the UK’s GDP – the financial value of all the goods and services produced in the country – to grow faster than any other in the G7 group of advanced economies.

Since Labour have been in power, the economy has grown faster than European rivals Italy, France and Germany, as well as Japan, but has lagged behind the US and Canada.

The UK did grow fastest in the most recent quarter we have data for, however, from the start of the year to the end of March.

VERDICT: Good to be ahead of other similar European economies, but still a way to go to overtake the North Americans

No tax rises

Without economic growth, it will be difficult to keep to one of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ biggest promises – that there will be no more tax rises or borrowing for the duration of her government’s term.

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said last month that she is a “gnat’s whisker” away from being forced to do that at the autumn budget, looking at the state of the economy at the moment.

That whisker will have been shaved even closer by the cost implications of the government’s failure to get its full welfare reform bill through parliament earlier this week.

And income tax thresholds are currently frozen until April 2028, meaning there is already a “stealth” hike scheduled for all of us every year.

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One year of Keir: A review of Starmer’s first 12 months in office

But the news from the last financial year was slightly better than expected. Total tax receipts for the year ending March 2025 were 35% of GDP.

That’s lower than the previous four years, and what was projected after Jeremy Hunt’s final Conservative budget, but higher than any of the 50 years before that.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) still projects it to rise in future years though, to a higher level than the post-WWII peak of 37.2%.

The OBR – a non-departmental public body that provides independent analysis of the public finances – has also said in the past few days that it is re-examining its methodology, because it has been too optimistic with its forecasts in the past.

If the OBR’s review leads to a more negative view of where the economy is going, Rachel Reeves could be forced to break her promise to keep the budget deficit from spiralling out of control.

VERDICT: It’s going to be difficult for the Chancellor to keep to her promise

OVERALL VERDICT: Investment and attention towards things like violent crime, the NHS and clean energy are yet to start bearing fruit, with only minuscule shifts in the right direction for each, but the government is confident that what’s happened so far is part of its plans.

Labour always said that the house-building target would be achieved with a big surge towards the back end of their term, but they won’t be encouraged by the numbers actually dropping in their first few months.

Where they are failing most dramatically, however, appears to be in reducing the number of migrants making the dangerous Channel crossing on small boats.

The economic news, particularly that rise in disposable income, looks more healthy at the moment. But with inflation still high and growth lagging behind some of our G7 rivals, that could soon start to turn.


The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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