Why Suella Braverman is politically useful to Rishi Sunak

The reappointed home secretary may terrify refugees, but she also reassures the new breed of Conservative nationalists in the Commons, says Sean O’Grady

Braverman leaves the first meeting of Rishi Sunak’s cabinet on Wednesday (Getty)

Opposition parties have rightly fastened upon the rapid reappointment of the leaky Suella Braverman as home secretary, with the added spice that fellow security risk Gavin Williamson has also scraped back onto the top table as an ominously-titled minister without portfolio.

But it is Braverman who has offended people, because of her views on refugees, repugnant as they are. She does, after all, have a dream of seeing a picture on the front page of the newspapers of distressed asylum seekers, including genuine ones, on a plane to Rwanda. It’s hardly Martin Luther King.

So she’s a disgrace. However, she is politically useful to Rishi Sunak. It would seem to be no coincidence that her last-minute support for Sunak in the post-Truss leadership contest has been followed by her swift rehabilitation. Despite saying during the party conference that Boris Johnson had been the victim of a “coup”, Braverman threw what weight she has behind Sunak instead of Johnson. As a former chair of the rightist European Research Group and virtually an extremist, her intervention may have sliced a few hardliners away from Johnson’s abortive return.

Braverman’s fanatical mission against migration protects the Sunak government’s right flank. No one can reasonably accuse the administration of being soft on protecting Britain’s borders if he puts this one-woman hate machine in charge of them. Indeed, her appointment handily closes off any opportunity she might have otherwise enjoyed playing a role as a leader of rebellious right-wing Tories in the Commons. If she fails to control the small boats in the Channel, and her Rwanda scheme flops (more likely than not), it will not be for the want of effort.

In party management terms, disappointed Truss supporters will feel as though “one of us” is represented at the cabinet table. She may terrify refugees, but she reassures the new breed of Conservative nationalists in the Commons and across party members and supporters. It may assuage their anger about not getting a vote in the leadership election.

As she is both on probation and on her final warning, Braverman will also be on her best behaviour. Her breach of the ministerial code gave Truss reason enough to force Braverman’s bitter resignation, but it was also political. The home secretary was messing up the growth plan and the India-UK trade deal by being difficult about issuing extra visas to alleviate the labour shortage. It’s unlikely she will rock the boat so soon after her lucky rehabilitation.

Fringe far-right groups such as Reform UK and the TV personality Nigel Farage represent a marginal but unwelcome distraction for the Conservatives, and Sunak will hope that Braverman’s loud and vicious presence at the Home Office will help prevent some Tories from either defecting to Reform or, much more likely, staying home. Taking a bit of heat from Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP is a small price for Sunak to pay for consolidating his hold on party and power. Even if he faces public service cuts, tax hikes, bigger mortgage bills and recession next year, the likes of Braverman, Kemi Badenoch and Dominic Raab will open up new culture wars to divide and confuse Labour. Sunak knows what he’s doing, even if it’s not particularly pleasant.