“She hasn’t fully delivered, we’ve got the Illegal Migration Act through now, and need gentler hands.”
Yet another bitter internal Tory row has erupted, as Tory MPs continue to tear into each other rather than focusing on the challenges facing the country.
Ahead of an anticipated cabinet reshuffle expected in September, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to sack Home Secretary Suella Braverman after her ‘failure to deliver’ according to Tory MPs, as well as over her ‘divisive rhetoric’.
It comes after the government’s ‘small boats week’, an attempt to make the issue of Channel crossings a wedge issue, spectacularly backfired after it emerged that we have now had a record number of crossings. We’ve also had the evacuation, due to a health scare, of the Bibby Stockholm barge used to house migrants.
The ipaper reports: ‘Conservative MPs believe the Home Secretary may be in the firing line when the Prime Minister changes his Cabinet team in a shuffle expected to take place at the start of September.”
The paper reports that Tory MPs are frustrated with Braverman over her failure to ‘slash the number of asylum seekers crossing the English Channel in dangerous small boats – with the latest PR disaster being the evacuation of migrants from an accommodation barge where the bacteria legionella was found.’
Earlier in the week, Sunak was forced to accept that he might not be able to ‘stop the boats’ by the election, which was one of his key pledges when he came to office.
Sunak told broadcasters: “I want it to be done as soon as possible, but I also want to be honest with people that it is a complex problem. There is not one simple solution and it can’t be solved overnight and I wouldn’t be being straight with people if I said that was possible.”
Tory MPs now believe that Braverman is in the firing line when the Cabinet reshuffle takes place. “The chatter is Suella will go”, one MP told the i. “She hasn’t fully delivered, we’ve got the Illegal Migration Act through now, and need gentler hands.” Another told the paper: “Braverman has got to go, she is sh*t. All of this right-wing nonsense is just playing into Labour’s hands.”
Another Tory insider claimed ministers were “trying to blame each other post the barge fiasco”, adding: “A couple of MPs who are normally supportive of Suella have said if she can’t deliver then she should go.
It remains to be seen whether Sunak feels strong enough to sack Braverman, given that she could make life quite difficult for him ahead of the next election if he were to do so.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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