As it was widely expected, Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak started the week with a bang, did a reshuffle in his cabinet, sacking embattled Home Secretary Suella Braverman, and surprisingly brought back former PM David Cameron for the position of Foreign Secretary.
The reorganization was caused by the enornous pressure Sunak was under to fire Braverman, after her criticism of the police’ woke bias was said to ‘threatened his authority’.
This is yet another restart for a PM badly losing in the polls to the opposition Labour Party.
Sunak is moving towards a more centrist territory, risking alienating the right of his party that supports Braverman.
Reuters reported:
“Under fire from opposition lawmakers and members of the governing Conservative Party to eject Braverman, Sunak seemed to have brought forward a long-planned reshuffle to bring in allies and remove ministers he felt were not performing.
Sunak’s hand was forced when the ever-controversial Braverman defied Sunak last week in an unauthorized article accusing police of “double standards” at protests, suggesting they were tough on right-wing demonstrators, but easy on pro-Palestinian marchers.”
Labour leaders said that she ‘inflamed tensions between a pro-Palestinian demonstration and a far-right counter protest’.
“She was replaced by James Cleverly, who had relished his job as foreign minister but who is seen as a safe pair of hands.”
The Prime Minister has asked me to serve as his Foreign Secretary and I have gladly accepted.
We are facing a daunting set of international challenges, including the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East. At this time of profound global change, it has rarely been more…
— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) November 13, 2023
Unexpectedly, PM Sunak chose Cameron for foreign minister.
It’s very rare for a non-lawmaker to take a senior government post, and it has also been decades since a former prime minister came back from the bench to hold a Cabinet job.
Cameron will be appointed to Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords.
Associated Press reported:
“Cameron said Britain was ‘facing a daunting set of international challenges, including the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East. While I have been out of front-line politics for the last seven years, I hope that my experience — as Conservative leader for 11 years and prime minister for six — will assist me in helping the prime minister to meet these vital challenges’, he said in a statement.
His appointment brings back to government a leader brought down by Britain’s decision to leave the European Union. Cameron called the 2016 EU membership referendum, confident the country would vote to stay in the bloc. He resigned the day after voters opted to leave.
Sunak was a strong backer of the winning ‘leave’ side in the referendum. Cameron’s return, and Braverman’s sacking, are likely to infuriate the Conservative Party’s right wing and inflame tensions in the party that Sunak has sought to soothe.”
Braverman’s fate was sealed after she wrote a non-authorized article for the Times of London in which she said out loud the forbidden fact: police ‘play favorites when it comes to protesters’, are lenient toward pro-Palestinian demonstrators and Black Lives Matter supporters, while cracking down harder on right-wing protesters or soccer hooligans.
“The bold changes are an attempt by Sunak to reset his faltering government. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years, but opinion polls for months have put them 15 to 20 points behind Labour amid a stagnating economy, persistently high inflation, an overstretched health care system and a wave of public sector strikes.”
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