Sacked minister savages UK’s Sunak as failing and weak (Updated)

Sacked British minister Suella Braverman launched a blistering attack on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, savaging his record and accusing him of betraying both her and the British people.

Popular on the right of the party, Braverman kept quiet on Monday after being fired, but published a letter to Sunak on Tuesday that could mark the start of a campaign to replace him if, as opinion polls predict, the party loses an election expected next year.

She accused Sunak of breaking a series of promises he made to her so she would serve under him as prime minister despite, she said, him “having no personal mandate”.

It was a brutal attack on his integrity – something he promised to return to government after the chaos of his two predecessors, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Braverman also suggested he was failing to deliver on his main campaign pledge to stop illegal migration.

“Someone needs to be honest: your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently,” Braverman said in the letter, posted on X.

A spokesperson for Sunak’s Number 10 office said in response: “The prime minister believes in actions not words.”

“The prime minister thanks the former home secretary for her service,” the spokesperson said in a statement, adding Sunak was “proud” of bringing forward the “toughest legislation to tackle illegal migration this country has seen”.

Braverman was sacked by Sunak on Monday after a string of controversies, culminating in an unauthorised article accusing police of double standards at pro-Palestinian protests.

Sunak became leader in October last year and appointed Braverman as interior minister, but Braverman said that he had “manifestly and repeatedly failed to deliver” on promises he had made to her in return for her support on areas including immigration, the Northern Ireland Protocol and others.

“Either your distinctive style of government means you are incapable of doing so. Or, as I must surely conclude now, you never had any intention of keeping your promises,“she wrote.