LONDON – UK interior minister Suella Braverman’s position looked increasingly precarious on Thursday after she criticised policing of pro-Palestinian marches in comments made without Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s approval.
Mr Sunak was facing mounting calls to sack his home secretary, after she suggested officers “play favourites” when policing protests, and claimed they largely ignored “pro-Palestinian mobs” during recent demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war.
The comments, seen as red meat to the right wing of the governing Conservative party, come after she described the rallies calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as “hate marches”, days after claiming some people were homeless as a “lifestyle choice”.
Downing Street insisted it had full confidence in Ms Braverman but said it was investigating how her comments in an opinion piece in The Times were published without its consent, as required by the ministerial code.
“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesman for Mr Sunak told reporters, referring to his Downing Street residence.
According to people familiar with the matter, the speech was sent to Mr Sunak’s office, which requested changes that were not made.
Ms Braverman’s words have heightened speculation she is positioning herself for a future Conservative leadership contest or that they are a deliberate ploy by Mr Sunak’s party to appeal to right-wingers before the next general election.
Mr Sunak has described a planned march in London on Saturday – Armistice Day, when Britain honours its war dead – as “provocative and disrespectful” and suggested London’s Metropolitan Police ban it.
Police have said the march in support of Palestinians does not meet the legal threshold for requesting a government order to stop it going ahead.
Scathing
Tensions between London’s Met Police and Mr Sunak appeared to ease on Wednesday after an emergency meeting at which the force’s chief, Commissioner Mark Rowley, confirmed the march would not clash with remembrance events for the country’s war dead.
But Ms Braverman’s article was scathing about the Met’s policing.
“Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response, yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behaviour are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law,” she wrote.
The outspoken Ms Braverman added she did not believe the protests were “merely a cry for help for Gaza” but were more an “assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists”.
Mr Tom Winsor, a former police watchdog chief, said the home secretary’s claim that the police were softer on left-wing groups went too far and were contrary to the principle of police independence.
‘Crosses the line’
“By applying pressure to the commissioner of the Met in this way, I think that crosses the line,” Mr Winsor told BBC radio.
The main opposition Labour party’s home affairs spokeswoman, Ms Yvette Cooper, said Ms Braverman was “out of control” and “encouraging extremists on all sides.”
London has seen large demonstrations on four successive weekends since the Hamas attacks in southern Israel on Oct 7, which Israel says left 1,400 people dead, mostly civilians. They also took 240 hostages.
Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded Gaza and sent in ground troops. The Palestinian territory’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 10,000 people have been killed.
Thousands join pro-Palestinian protest in London to demand Gaza ceasefire
London police chief calls for clarity on handling extremism at protests
The Met police have made almost 200 arrests since the Hamas attacks, either for hate crimes or incidents linked to the protests, while anti-Semitism cases have surged.
Ms Braverman’s fondness for stoking culture wars may prove useful to the Tories as they try to overhaul huge deficits to Labour in opinion polls before an election that must be held by January 2025.
Ms Braverman, whose Indian-origin parents emigrated to Britain in the 1960s, recently described multiculturalism as a “misguided dogma”.
She has attacked the United Nations Refugee Convention and warned that Britain faces a “hurricane” of immigration, and once called liberals the “tofu-eating wokerati”. AFP
About 100,000 protesters join pro-Palestinian march through London
17 British nationals dead or missing in Israel: BBC
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