After a brief sabbatical from scandals following the exit of Dominic Raab, Rishi Sunak’s government faces another round of probity questions courtesy of his home secretary’s conduct over a speeding fine.
Suella Braverman is accused of trying to swerve public ignominy by asking impartial civil servants to help arrange a private speed awareness course, with a view to avoiding a fine or receiving points on her licence. While the home secretary eventually paid the fine, her critics say the allegations could potentially contravene the Nolan principles of public life. The code explicitly places a requirement upon ministers to ensure “no conflict arises, or could reasonably be perceived to arise, between their public duties and their private interests”.
Suella’s speeding saga means we are once again in a position in Westminster where the dominant story is a minister trying to stay in their job. And, once again, we see Rishi Sunak’s judgement come under serious scrutiny.
Back in October, it was widely believed that Sunak reappointed Braverman as home secretary as a result of a deal negotiated during the fast-tracked October leadership contest. This much-reported unofficial pact saw the right-winger swing behind the soon-to-be PM, burst Boris’ comeback bubble and paved the way for mutually assured career climbing: No. 10 keys to Sunak, home office keys to Braverman — and the party right.
It was a win, win scenario; in theory anyway.
So when it comes to today’s speeding saga, any attempt to remove Braverman from the cabinet will be politically difficult for Sunak for the same reason reappointing her as home secretary was politically propitious. He needs his party right onside. And already a darling of the grassroots, were she to leave government again, Sunak risks creating a standard bearer for his sceptics on the backbenches and a conduit for discontent.
With his home secretary by his side, even with the freelancing, Sunak remains in charge. In any case, with key Sunak ally Robert Jenrick installed as immigration minister, the home office is hardly Braverman’s own personal political fiefdom.
It points to an important conclusion: the prime minister may just need his home secretary more than his home secretary needs him. It is a fact that begs serious questions of Braverman’s political prospects: after her speech at NatCon last week, might she be starting to question who her alliance with Sunak is really benefitting?
Of course, in terms of policy, Sunak and Braverman’s relentlessly right-wing political alliance has proved singularly significant. The illegal migration bill, currently the subject of scrutiny in the House of Lords, is a striking example of this. If passed, it would see arrivals on “small boats” detained within the first 28 days without bail or judicial review. It would place a legal duty on the government to deport almost anyone who arrives “irregularly” to the UK. And it would introduce a cap on the number of refugees offered sanctuary through safe and legal routes.
But is this enough for the home secretary? Her speech at the National Conservatism conference last week was roundly interpreted as a rehearsal for a future leadership contest — and her comments, especially on the topic of legal migration, have been viewed as an attempt to distance herself from the government in which she serves. With more public division among Conservative MPs to follow on border control, with official figures set to reveal that net migration could be close to 700,000 for the past 12 months, this was Braverman attempting to fly ahead of the storm.
Naturally there is still plenty left to unravel in Braverman’s speeding saga over the coming days and weeks (the PM is still yet to confirm the outcome of his meeting with his ethics adviser Laurie Magnus). But right now it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that were the PM to lose Braverman after an investigation — hands tied by his “professionalism, accountability, integrity” commitments — it may leave the home secretary ideally placed to boost her political prestige.
It would not be a standard political martyring by any measure, because on key policy issues like the illegal migration bill, the PM and Braverman are at one. But there remains a narrative to weave here — specifically as the home secretary’s travails pertain to the actions of “the Blob” and its purported malignant designs on ministerial careers.
In the wake of Braverman’s speeding mishaps, the seeds of a narrative around an obstructionist “blob” and snivelling civil servants have been scattered through sympathetic press rooms. (That Braverman’s speeding woes are thought to have entered the pages of the Times via a civil servant fits a burgeoning narrative on the Conservative right that Whitehall is working against their agenda).
And Braverman is far from a known friend of Whitehall officials. Two months ago an email was sent in her name to Conservative supporters blaming “an activist blob of leftwing lawyers, civil servants and the Labour party” for the government’s failure to stop Channel crossings. The home secretary later disowned the email, but the episode is nonetheless illustrative of strained home office-civil service relations.
So if Braverman has to go, she can chalk it up to the Brexit-begrudging “Blob” and maintain — and even increase — her leadership standing. In fact, recent history tells us exiting the home office as fast as possible might be Braverman’s only route to the Conservative crown.
As has been noted elsewhere, notably by Stephen Bush in the Financial Times, the home office is not what it once was as a platform for an ambitious minister.
For this point, the most significant case study is Priti Patel, home secretary under Boris Johnson, and someone once touted as a grassroots favourite for the post of prime minister.
Through 2019-2022, Patel was no less convinced on illegal migration policy than Braverman — indeed, before it was Braverman’s dream “to have a front page of The Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda” it was Patel’s. One home secretary’s international deportations treaty is another’s generous inheritance.
But Patel, by the end of her tenure in the home office, was much-derided by the Conservative grassroots. And when Johnson announced his resignation, the home secretary was a conspicuous absentee on the list of runners and riders to enter No 10.
Tellingly, ConservativeHome’s final cabinet member “league table” of Johnson’s tenure found Patel had a negative 13.4 per cent satisfaction among surveyed party members. “In Patel’s case”, Paul Goodman and Henry Hill of ConservativeHome wrote at the time, “the main reason is clear: small boats”.
What next for the home secretary?
Like Patel before her, there is no mistaking the influence Suella Braverman is having on policy in government. Sunak’s tough talk on “small boats”, his tough rules, his bullishness, the desire to test the limits of international law and stare down the ECHR, it’s all straight out of the home secretary’s playbook. It means that while Braverman has tried to distance herself from her own government in recent weeks, there is no disguising that the home secretary, too, will be on the hook politically for any failure to “stop the boats”.
And as Patel discovered, the expectations raised by hardline rhetoric in the home office naturally makes a perceived lack of delivery even more politically potent. Small boats are easier to talk about than to “stop” outright.
Since becoming home secretary, Braverman has upped the electoral stakes significantly by winning a “stop the boats” pledge — a full one-fifth of the PM’s pre-election offering — for her brief. By trailing “stopping the boats” as a “peoples’ priority”, Sunak and the home secretary know they have special incentives to deliver.
So if the speeding saga spirals further — and Sunak’s hands are tied by his much-repeated probity promises — Braverman’s martyrdom may be her only way out and forward. One wonders if by making enemies as quickly as possible, the home secretary is deliberately hastening her demise.
Ultimately, Braverman’s hagiography — as a home secretary who was serious about stopping boats before she was herself stopped by Whitehall intrigue and political ill will — would write itself.
In the process, Rishi Sunak might just find himself lumped in with “the blob”.
