Suella Braverman is the second member of the recently formed cabinet to depart, as calls for the PM’s resignation grow
Suella Braverman arrives for a cabinet meeting at Downing Street in London, Britain, October 11, 2022 © AP / Alberto Pezzali
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman resigned on Wednesday. While Braverman officially stated that she stepped down due to a “technical infringement” of government rules, the news comes as Prime Minister Liz Truss faces record low popularity and calls from her own party to resign.
In a letter to Truss, Braverman said that she had sent an official document to a “trusted parliamentary colleague” using her personal email earlier that day. The document was a draft ministerial statement on migration that lawmakers had already been briefed on, Braverman explained, adding that sending it via her personal email nevertheless was “a technical infringement of the rules.”
“I have made a mistake, I accept responsibility; I resign,” she wrote.
After 43 days in her position, Braverman is the second member of Truss’ cabinet to leave within six weeks. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was fired last week after he and Truss unveiled a ‘mini budget’ that allocated tens of billions of pounds to sweeping tax cuts and ended up crashing the British pound.
Read more
Braverman faced larger controversies than a missent email during her tenure. Pressed by the opposition to defend a controversial Public Order Bill that would give police new powers to crack down on protests, Braverman on Tuesday wrote off her critics as a coalition of “Guardian-reading, tofo-eating wokerati.”
She also opposed Truss’ U-turn on her costly tax cuts, and pledged to dramatically cut immigration to the UK, at a time when Truss looks set to increase the number of foreigners arriving in a bid to stimulate the economy. According to The Guardian’s sources, Braverman was forced to resign by Kwarteng’s successor, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, whom they claim is “pulling the strings” as Truss scrambles to save her job.
Taking over from Boris Johnson amid an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, Truss’ hugely criticized budget tanked her popularity, with an Observer poll earlier this month putting her approval rating at -47, a record low for a PM since the newspaper started measuring in the 1990s.
Conservative MPs are reportedly planning on ousting Truss, and a group of Tory lawmakers have publicly called on her to step down to avoid a landslide victory for the Labour Party when a general election is called. However, Truss said on Monday that she has no intention of resigning.
