Sunak Can Afford To Ignore Braverman's Empty Threats

Always a stranger to humility, Suella Braverman’s excoriating letter to the prime minister is disfigured by its acrid personal attacks on Rishi Sunak and some highly disputable self-aggrandizing claims about herself.

She tells Mr Sunak, in effect, that he is only in No 10 thanks to her “pivotal support” in the second Tory leadership contest last year. There is something in that, but that doesn’t make him eternally beholden to her. The rest of the text is a series of whinges that fully justifies the view that Ms. Braverman was insufferably impertinent and disloyal during their uncomfortable time together – and that he was more patient with her than anyone realized.

Most significant though is that Ms Braverman calls on him only to “change course” – there is no demand for his resignation. Despite its fiery tone and grievance-packed nature, this is a damp squib. She is looking towards a leadership election after, and not before, the next general election.

As an exercise in positioning herself to succeed Sir Keir Starmer as the next leader of the opposition, rather than replacing Mr Sunak now, Ms Braverman’s recent activities have much to commend them, on those narrow grounds of personal ambition. After a heavy defeat at the general election and in opposition, freed from the constraints of government, the Conservatives may well turn to her – but not yet.

A querulous bunch even at the best of times, those on the Tory right are, unsurprisingly, deeply unhappy with the cabinet reshuffle. Their anger is not assuaged by her letter to Mr Sunak. To her growing fanbase – especially among the membership – she was not simply a home secretary who said the things they wanted to hear, but was “one of their own”. A former chair of the European Research Group, she enjoyed the added distinction of being one of the “Spartans” who voted against every single variant of a Brexit deal during Theresa May’s administration.