David Cameron has made a dramatic return to the British government as foreign secretary in a reshuffle triggered by Rishi Sunak’s decision to sack Suella Braverman from the Home Office.
The former British prime minister replaced James Cleverly as foreign secretary and will be given a seat in the House of Lords.
Mr Cleverly takes on the job of home secretary after Mr Sunak ended Mrs Braverman’s controversial tenure in the job.
Sacking one of the leading figures on the Tory right could pose difficulties for the Prime Minister as he seeks to get his party united behind him and ready for a general election, expected next year.
Ominously, Mrs Braverman said she would have “more to say in due course” about her exit, which followed rows over comments about homeless people and the policing of pro-Palestinian marches.
Mrs Braverman said: “It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary.”
Former minister Andrea Jenkyns said Mrs Braverman had been “sacked for speaking the truth”, and it was a “bad call by Rishi caving in to the left”.
News of Mrs Braverman’s exit came as defence minister James Heappey was touring broadcast studios.
Minutes before she was sacked, he had told LBC that Mr Sunak and his team in No 10 had been “very clear she (Mrs Braverman) has his confidence and, in that sense, one would imagine that she will continue”.
But he was told on air during an ITV Good Morning Britain interview that she had been sacked, leaving him to say: “Your viewers will be enjoying my discomfort, but it is in this case difficult to offer commentary when I just don’t know what is going on.”
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey said: “Suella Braverman was never fit to be Home Secretary. Rishi Sunak knew this and he still appointed her.
“It was the Prime Minister’s sheer cowardice that kept her in the job even for this long. We are witnessing a broken party and a broken Government, both of which are breaking this country.”
