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Liz Truss’s beleaguered government appeared at risk of collapse on Wednesday as Suella Braverman launched a stinging attack on the prime minister after being forced to resign as home secretary.
Braverman’s dramatic departure, coming just five days after Truss sacked her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, risks the prime minister experiencing the sort of mass exodus of ministers that forced Boris Johnson to quit.
Amid chaotic scenes in the Commons, it was reported that Wendy Morton, the chief whip, and her deputy, Craig Whittaker, were both reported to have left the government. However, after hours of confusion Downing Street released a statement saying the two “remain in post”.
In a move first revealed by the Guardian, Braverman announced she was stepping down over the misuse of her personal email, although furious allies on the Conservative right suspect she was forced out by Truss and her new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.
In a brutal resignation letter which clearly contrasted her departure with Truss’s decision to sacrifice Kwarteng over the debacle of last month’s mini-budget, Braverman wrote: “Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign.”
She added: “It is obvious to everyone that we are going through a tumultuous time. I have concerns about the direction of this government. Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but I have had serious concerns about this government’s commitment to honouring manifesto commitments.”
In a cursory reply, Truss told Braverman: “I accept your resignation and respect the decision you have made.”
In another move that will enrage MPs from Braverman’s wing of the party, she is being replaced by Grant Shapps, the former transport secretary who was a leading supporter of Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership race.
The change of personnel in the second of the four great offices of state came on a frantic day which also saw a series of Tory MPs, including Truss’s net zero tsar, rebel in a fracking vote, another U-turn over the pensions triple lock, and a mauling from Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions.
After the government won a vote to defeat a Labour motion to ban fracking, the Labour MP Chris Bryant told the Commons in a point of order that he had seen some Tory members “physically manhandled” by ministers into voting for the government.
With Truss’s authority visibly ebbing away, the renewed ministerial shake-up will reignite speculation about a potential leadership challenge from the right of the party. Braverman was among those who stood to replace Johnson, and has made her future ambitions clear.
The official narrative for her resignation was that she was removed for sharing an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP, a serious breach of ministerial rules.
The draft written statement was deemed particularly sensitive because it related to immigration rules which could have major implications for market sensitive growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Charles Walker, the veteran Tory backbencher, said on Wednesday night that he was “really pleased” at Braverman’s resignation, adding that he “didn’t think she was up to the job”.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, he added: “Let’s not beat around the bush here. And I expect the prime minister to resign very soon because she’s not up to her job either … I will shed no tears for either of them.”
When asked when Truss should quit, he replied: “Well I hope, by tomorrow … She needs to go. She shouldn’t have been made prime minister.”
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With a tenure of 43 days, Braverman is the shortest-serving home secretary since the Duke of Wellington who lasted just a month in November-December 1834. It follows Friday’s replacement of Kwarteng as chancellor by Hunt, another Conservative moderate.
Braverman’s departure comes a day after she used a Commons debate on environmental protests to blame a “coalition of chaos” including opposition parties and the “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati” for supporting such groups.
Shapps’ appointment raised eyebrows in Westminster as he was believed to have been involved in attempts to get rid of the prime minister, and had been a leading voice of dissent at last month’s Conservative conference.
It comes two days after he told Matt Forde’s podcast that he thought Truss was unlikely to survive. “She needs to thread the eye of a needle with the lights off, it’s that difficult,” he said.
But much like the appointment of Hunt, Shapps’ arrival gives Tory MPs another sign that Truss hopes to seek support from a broader base of the party after filling her initial cabinet with loyalists.
In a brief statement outside his new department, Shapps refused to comment on his predecessor’s exit. “There is a very important job to do,” he said. “People expect their government to ensure there is security for them. It is a great office of state. I am obviously honoured to do that role. I am going to get on with that serious role right now.”
Truss, still reeling from the impact of Kwarteng’s sacking and the decision of Hunt to subsequently rip up her economic strategy, cleared her diary and called off a planned visit as she prepared to change another occupant of one of the great offices of state. She spoke to Braverman in her Commons office, according to insiders.
Downing Street sources claimed the move was at the behest of Hunt, who has taken over control of the government’s economic response after Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, but who they claimed was now “pulling the strings”.
The official reason for the move was met with raised eyebrows from some of Braverman’s backers. Steve Baker, who co-led her leadership campaign but is now a Northern Ireland minister, said the use of a personal email had only been “technically” a breach of the rules, and that such liaison with other MPs on policy was “perfectly normal”.
One Tory MP said it seemed “very minor” and that most cabinet ministers had been guilty of the same thing. Another admitted: “If they wanted to keep her and she wanted to stay, this wouldn’t be a resigning matter.”
A former No 10 aide said it was “bullshit” that she would have been told to stand down for sending a draft written ministerial statement.
“Special advisers and ministers, including the PM, have done much much worse,” they said, adding: “Team Truss obviously handed her the revolver.”
Braverman was seen as a backbench and party member-pleasing choice for the role, given her robust views on immigration, law and order and culture war issues.
However, the former attorney general has been at the centre of several controversies since taking over, including speaking out against a proposed trade deal with India due to her worries about it increasing immigration to the UK.
