Just one of many reasons Braverman has to go

[Emrys]

At today's Prime Minister's Questions, Keir Starmer tried to hold Rishi Sunak to account for a number of issues. Sunak appeared to have shed the faux-humility he feigned in his stilted acceptance speech the other day and decided to channel Boris Johnson's rambustious style of baying obfuscation in response to any question he didn't feel like answering properly.

One such question concerned his reappointed/reprieved Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, and the shady circumstances surrounding her dismissal/resignation from Liz Truss's shortlived cabinet in the dim and distant past of last week. Braverman admitted having breached the ministerial code by using her private email account for government business and apologized for her "error" (note singular). But there's a bit more to it than that.

A detail in a Times article by Tim Shipman and Carol Wheeler shed more light on what was going on:

... Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, alerted Truss that Suella Braverman, the home secretary, had committed two breaches of the ministerial code. She had emailed cabinet papers from her ministerial account to her private gmail account and then on to backbench veteran Sir John Hayes, a fellow right-winger. She also copied in someone she thought was Hayes’s wife but was actually an assistant to Andrew Percy, the MP for Brigg and Goole. After taking advice from colleagues, Percy spoke to the chief whip, Wendy Morton, who referred the issue to Case.

Braverman was later to argue that the document was simply a written ministerial statement, that she had had a blazing row with Truss about immigration numbers (implying that was the real reason for her dismissal) and that she had sent it by mistake at 4am. It was, in fact, sent three or four hours later that morning.

A No 10 source was withering: “She doesn’t make any decision without consulting John Hayes,” who had been acting as an unofficial adviser, frequently seen in the Home Office, meetings which had come to the attention of Matthew Rycroft, the permanent secretary. “Concerns had been raised prior to Wednesday that Braverman might have been sharing restricted government documents with people she shouldn’t have,” a source said. Braverman agreed to resign.

https://www.liverpoolway.co.uk/index.php?/forums/topic/99909-boris-johnson/&page=332

The Ministerial Code nowadays seems to be honoured more in the breach than the observance, and few expect a state apparatus under the control of a party of government that did its damnedest to protect Boris Johnson and his allies from any consequences for such transgressions to impose any serious sanction on Braverman.

It's not a stretch to infer that Braverman has made a habit of sharing government documents with John Hayes (and goodness knows who else) - and for some reason, his wife - for quite some time.

If anyone wants to slip down the rabbit hole and check out who Hayes is and what he stands for, here's his Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hayes_(British_politician). Holder of what has been the safest Tory seat in the UK, he has some predictably charming views on issues ranging from capital punishment to equal marriage to abortion and, of course, Brexit. He's also a "strategic adviser to BB Energy, a Dubai-headquartered energy trading group".

As for immigration, the Guardian's been doing its own digging to flesh out Hayes's side of the story:

Sir John Hayes: ‘in lockstep’ with Suella Braverman on immigration
Veteran Tory MP was intended recipient of home secretary’s plans sent from her personal email
...

Hayes told the Guardian last week that [Braverman] planned to campaign alongside him on immigration from the backbenches.

“Suella in seeking my advice, sent a draft policy document to me, which she inadvertently ended up sending to a third party in parliament. That is a technical breach of the code,” he said.

“She reported herself and accepted responsibility. She’s disappointed to leave office but resolved to continue to campaign with me and others to fulfil the party’s manifesto commitments to cut legal immigration and end illegal migration.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/26/sir-john-hayes-in-lockstep-with-suella-braverman-on-immigration

Who the "others" are and whether any of them have also been recipients of illicit emails from Braverman, directly or via Hayes, is a question that deserves an answer, but on current form, that's not going to happen on the floor of the Commons.

This may end up being a relatively trivial matter with no serious repercussions for those involved. Maybe it'll be a shot across Braverman's bow that stops such future "unofficial consultations" with Hayes and whoever else. But I have a feeling something else may happen soon that may see her implode, as she seems rather accident-prone.

Meanwhile, I'd rather see Braverman held to account for her hideous views on immigration and asylum seekers, among many other aspects of her portfolio, but it looks like Labour isn't well placed to tackle her on those issues since Starmer declared last week that there's little between Labour and the Tories on immigration.

[Emrys]

1. It looks like this isn't going to die down any time soon!

Last edited Wed Oct 26, 2022, 07:00 PM - Edit history (1)

Labour Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper - deprived of the chance to question Braverman directly in the House this afternoon because the Home Secretary (for this week at least) bravely ran away - isn't quitting:

Link to tweet

Yvette Cooper
@YvetteCooperMP

The Home Secretary admitted sending official Govt documents to those not authorised to receive them. Was this the only time?

Home Secretary is responsible for national security. Breaches & security lapses need to be investigated.

My letter to Cabinet Secretary Simon Case

Then later in the day (this is the first time I've linked to TalkTV, let alone Harry Coles on a Piers Morgan show; let's hope it doesn't become a habit):

Link to tweet

Yvette Cooper
@YvetteCooperMP

This is extraordinary & very serious

@JakeBerry says there were “multiple breaches of the Ministerial Code” by @SuellaBraverman inc “documents on cybersecurity”

@RishiSunak what security warnings did you ignore when you reappointed Home Secretary?

@KateEMcCann @MrHarryCole

[Twitter video]

Fans of irony may enjoy, as I did, the revelation from Berry that the leaked documents concerned cybersecurity.

The SNP's Westminster leader Ian Blackford thinks Braverman's heading for a record for being Home Secretary for the second-shortest and third-shortest terms:

Link to tweet

Peston
@itvpeston

.@Peston: Do you think Suella will go?

@Ianblackford_MP: I do, I think Rishi has made a big mistake on this.

@theSNP Westminster Leader says the Prime Minister’s decision to reappoint the Home Secretary was a failure of leadership and he should “fess up”.

#Peston

[Twitter video]

Heck, even the Lib Dems are trying to get in on the action:

Link to tweet

Lewis Goodall
@lewis_goodall
NEW: Lib Dems call for Cabinet Office inquiry into the (re)appointment of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary, citing potential security concerns.

Nazir Afzal (a former Chief Prosecutor whose time in office overlapped with Starmer's time as Director of Public Prosecutions and Head of the Crown Prosecution Service) thinks there may be a good reason why Sunak strenuously avoided answering Starmer's question about whether he's received any official warnings about appointing Braverman:

Link to tweet

nazir afzal
@nazirafzal

Starmer asks #PMQs whether Sunak took advice from Officials about appointing Braverman
Sunak pointedly refused to answer

There is clearly more to emerge & it can only be to the detriment of the standing of the Home Secretary & the integrity of the PM

Funnily enough, Braverman can be quite good at keeping secrets when it suits her:

Link to tweet

🏛️GOV2.UK
@GOV2UK
Home Secretary Suella Braverman trying not to tell us that The ERG is a secretive group of MPs and Ministers who take Public Money and use it to research how to derail UK Democracy for Private Interests.

#ToryDictatorship #ToriesOut111

[Twitter video]

What did Sunak have to promise to whom to get the premiership? Maybe we'll find out one day, along with what sworn enemies he made in the process.

Meanwhile, he should bear in mind that much as Johnson deserved to go for any number of transgressions as prime minister, his bridge too far was lying about what he knew in order to protect a crony who'd repeatedly broken the law.

[Emrys]

2. Oh boy.

While I was pulling that last post together, this broke, in the Mail of all places. Whether or not she was the leaker in this earlier case, Braverman must be on the way out (again).

Suella Braverman was embroiled in probe over leak that raised 'concerns' at MI5

* Home Secretary was included in an investigation this year by a little-known unit
* The leak related to a story about the Government's plan to apply for an injunction
* The story said that it was the Attorney General who was seeking the injunction
* It is understood leak about her plans caused 'concern' to the Security Service

Suella Braverman was probed by Government officials as part of an inquiry into the leak of a sensitive story involving Britain's security services, the Daily Mail can reveal today.

The Home Secretary was included in an investigation this year by a little-known unit within the Cabinet Office that handles leak inquiries.

The leak related to a story about the Government's plan to apply for an injunction against the BBC to stop it from identifying a spy who was accused of using his position to terrorise his former partner.
...
The Mail understands that the investigation ultimately found no 'conclusive evidence' of who the leaker was. A Whitehall source said: 'They did not find conclusive evidence of who the leaker was. There was a wide field of potential leakers.' The source added: 'If there had been solid knowledge of who was responsible, the matter wouldn't have been left to rest there.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11358451/Suella-Braverman-embroiled-probe-leak-raised-concerns-MI5.html

[Emrys]

3. And here's today's helping:

Doubts arise over Braverman’s claim to have come forward about code breach
Former intelligence select committee chief warns issue threatens to undermine confidence in sharing sensitive information
...
The account given by the home secretary and backed up by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, when he defended reappointing her just six days after she was found to have broken the ministerial code were challenged by government insiders and a senior Conservative MP.

Sources told the Guardian that Braverman was confronted by the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, about the leaking of a sensitive document, rather than coming forward herself about what had happened. One said: “She only owned up to it when she was confronted with the evidence.”

This means that Sunak wasn't telling the truth at Prime Minister's Questions when he said Braverman "raised the matter" herself, and neither was Braverman when she made a similar claim. And there's been another leak about a leak, channelled again via Harry Cole:

On Thursday night the Sun reported that Braverman had leaked top secret plans to cut Britain’s deficit by £14bn with a new “growth visa”. A source told the paper: “Suella has tried to play down the scale of the cock-up but it was incendiary, market sensitive information.”

But as things stand, we can't rely on the Cabinet Secretary to do anything about it:

Case is understood not to be launching an investigation into Braverman’s resignation or whether her suitability to be reappointed as home secretary has been brought into question by the latest claims.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/27/rishi-sunak-pressed-suella-braverman-serious-breach

But some among the previously loyal Tory media seem to have it in for Braverman, and quite possibly Sunak, too.

Link to tweet

First Edition
@FirstEdition

The Sun's Political Editor Harry Cole reveals that Liz Truss was furious with Suella Braverman because the Home Secretary was widely sharing top secret government plans to create a new growth visa to reduce the budget deficit by £14bn.

@tnewtondunn | @MrHarryCole | @TheSun

One theory doing the rounds is that Sunak had to buy the European Research Group lobby's votes by promising cabinet posts for some of its less salubrious darlings (e.g. Braverman and Coffey), wasn't happy about being saddled with Braverman (she's a handy deflector screen at the moment as he tries to settle in, but too hardline on UK immigration that's needed for economic reasons, as she supposedly battled with Truss about), but knew the dust hadn't settled yet about the circumstances of her resignation/sacking and more was going to come out that would mean he'd be rid of her.

I'm not sure if I buy that. It might explain the readiness of some of the Tory media to go after here so doggedly, but I don't think Sunak's a clever enough politician to come up with that sort of plan, not to mention that it's quite risky for him. There's always the chance that he's being coached by a shadowy, Machiavellian spad or whatever, though.

Hmm. Isn't Gove back in government ...?