Was this the moment we passed ‘peak Suella’?

Braverman’s tough rhetoric no longer masks her obvious failure to deliver, says Andrew Grice. Rishi Sunak could do worse than make his semi-detached home secretary fully detached in his next cabinet reshuffle

Suella Braverman delivers her keynote speech at Manchester on Tuesday (PA)

What does a prime minister do with a problem like Suella? Rishi Sunak might want to make his semi-detached home secretary fully detached in his next cabinet reshuffle, but his allies suspect Suella Braverman calculates that being sacked would enhance her future leadership prospects.

On Tuesday, Braverman won a genuine rather than a staged standing ovation at the Conservative conference, for a speech in which she said “immigration is already too high” and admitted politicians had not done “a great job” in managing it in the last 30 years.

She did not push the boundaries of cabinet collective responsibility by renewing her call for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Her address, carefully vetted by Downing Street, was loyal to Sunak and mainly an attack on wokery, and a Labour Party she claimed favoured “open borders”. She cheekily accused Labour of “rhetoric” about controlling migration – her own speciality.

Braverman’s future is the subject of much gossip in Manchester in the margins of the conference. One intriguing idea doing the rounds is that Sunak should tell Braverman and business secretary Kemi Badenoch he wants them to swap jobs. That would be a promotion for Badenoch, Braverman’s rival in the leadership race that – even if Sunak tried to cling on – would inevitably follow defeat in next year’s general election.

But it would be a demotion for Braverman, an offer she would surely refuse, opting instead to lob grenades at Sunak from the backbenches.

The PM’s allies are divided about “the Suella question”. Some argue it is safer to keep her inside his tent. But increasingly loud voices are saying he can afford to let her go after she overreached in her inflammatory speech in Washington last week, in which she warned that uncontrolled immigration posed an “existential threat”, said multiculturalism had “failed”, and that “simply being gay” should not be enough to gain protection under asylum laws.

She has failed to back up her claim that there were “many instances” of asylum seekers pretending to be gay to “game the system”; only 1.5 per cent of asylum applications reference sexuality.

While there is support here among Tory activists for Braverman’s suggestion that international conventions on refugees and human rights are out of date, her remarks about gay people are, thankfully, playing badly.

One Tory insider told me: “Even the illiberal tendency in the party is liberal on gay rights.” To his credit, David Cameron took on his own party over gay marriage and won. The party’s debate on gay rights is settled, and Braverman showed a lack of judgement by straying down this path.

Andrew Boff, a gay Tory member of the London Assembly, was ejected from the Manchester conference after heckling Braverman over her remarks on gender ideology. He accused her of making the party “look transphobic and homophobic”.

Cabinet ministers are privately urging Sunak to rein in his troublesome home secretary. But she will be a contender in the next leadership contest. As the warm welcome at the conference for a brazen Liz Truss showed, Tory grassroots members, who have the final say in choosing the leader, are quite capable of electing another maverick.

Yet I detect here that some Tories are selling shares in Braverman, judging that her tough rhetoric no longer masks her failure to deliver, notably on “stopping the boats”.

In contrast, Badenoch’s stock is rising. Her conference speech, saying that Britain is “the best country in the world to be black”, played well.

Braverman’s conference speech tried to match Badenoch’s commitment to a “war on woke”, and earlier the home secretary made a tactical retreat over multiculturalism. On a visit to Bolton, she conceded that “we have a great multi-ethnic society, and in many parts of our country integration has worked”, but insisted that, in many towns and cities, immigrants live “parallel lives”.

Tory centrists think they can do business with Badenoch, though some who have worked closely with her describe her as “brittle” and “not the finished article”. One senior Tory said: “Suella has been overpromoted and rumbled. Kemi is more pragmatic and a more credible contender.”

Braverman also faces a possible challenge to be the right-wing standard-bearer from Priti Patel, her predecessor at the Home Office, who suggested Braverman’s Washington speech had been an attempt to “get attention” – while perhaps trying to get some for herself.

One former cabinet minister told me: “Priti and Suella are having a cat fight. Priti thinks Suella is trying to pin the blame on her [Patel] for her own failures. Suella’s mantra is that it is always someone else’s fault – but she is running out of excuses.”

Although her conference speech ticked enough boxes for her delighted audience today, the question on many Tory minds is: has Braverman revealed her own unfitness for the party’s top job? She is still in the game, but the sense here is that we may have passed “peak Suella”.