Suella Braverman has accused Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of having “manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver” on key policies in a scathing letter after being sacked as home secretary.
In an explosive attack, she said she only accepted the job in September last year because she was given “firm assurances” he would prioritise migration, Brexit and gender issues.
However she said: “You have manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver on every single one of these key policies.
“Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises.”
Politics Live: Braverman launches scathing attack on Sunak – in letter that ‘signals’ her plan now
Ms Braverman was sacked as home secretary during the prime minister’s reshuffle on Monday and former foreign secretary James Cleverly took her role.
The move has angered some on the Tory right, with David Cameron’s return to the frontbench to fill Mr Cleverly’s old position seen as a pivot to the centre ground.
In the lengthy letter, Ms Braverman took aim at how Mr Sunak came to be prime minister in the aftermath of Liz Truss’s disastrous and short-lived tenure without facing a vote of party members – and indicated she did a deal with the PM to ensure her “pivotal support”.
She said: “Despite you having been rejected by a majority of party members during the summer leadership contest and thus having no personal mandate to be prime minister, I agreed to support you because of the firm assurances you gave me on key policy priorities.”
She said these included reducing overall legal migration, delivering on the Northern Ireland Protocol and Retained EU Law Bills, giving statutory guidance to schools that protects biological sex and agreeing on the possible need to leave the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) in order to deliver on the Rwanda deportation plan.
However, she claimed that despite sending “numerous letters on the key subjects contained in our agreement”, as well as making requests to discuss them and working up legal and policy advice, “this was often met with equivocation, disregard and a lack of interest”.
She went on: “These are not just pet interests of mine. They are what we promised the British people in our 2019 manifesto which led to a landslide victory. They are what people voted for in the 2016 Brexit Referendum.
“Our deal was no mere promise over dinner, to be discarded when convenient and denied when challenged.”
Small boats ‘betrayal’
In particular, Ms Braverman said Mr Sunak had not lived up to his promise to do “whatever it takes” to stop small boat crossings by failing to override human rights concerns about the Rwanda plan.
She said that if Mr Sunak did not agree to leave the ECHR he had to be prepared to “block off” the risk of human rights challenges to measures to curb migrant crossings.
“Your rejection of this path was not merely a betrayal of our agreement, but a betrayal of your promise to the nation that you would do ‘whatever it takes’ to stop the boats,” she said.
Ahead of Wednesday’s Supreme Court ruling on the controversial policy to send refugees to East Africa, Ms Braverman accused the prime minister of “magical thinking – believing that you can will your way through this without upsetting polite opinion” and of failing to prepare a plan B should the justices rule against the government.
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Suella Braverman’s letter to Rishi Sunak in full after being sacked as home secretary
Mr Sunak sacked Mrs Braverman over the phone on Monday morning, clearing the way for a high-risk reshuffle aimed at reviving his faltering premiership.
She was purged after writing an unauthorised article in The Times which accused the Met Police of left-wing bias to Pro-Palestine protesters. It was the latest in a series of inflammatory comments that was starting to rile members of her own party, including saying that rough sleeping was a “lifestyle choice”.
Ms Braverman admitted she may “not have always found the right words” but said she has “endeavoured to be honest and true to the people who put us in these privileged positions”.
She also urged Mr Sunak to “change course urgently”, telling him he has led the Conservatives to “record election defeats” and that his “resets have failed and we are running out of time”.
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