Sunak vows to bring ‘integrity’ to No 10 but
gambles by restoring Braverman
New PM pledges to fix ‘mistakes’ of predecessor but
return of former home secretary alarms some MPs
Jessica
Elgot, Aubrey Allegretti and Rowena Mason
Tue 25 Oct
2022 22.44 BST
Rishi Sunak
pledged to bring “integrity and accountability” as prime minister on his first
day in No 10 but gambled by restoring Suella Braverman to the Home Office less
than week after she was forced to resign for a security breach.
In a
reshuffle billed as returning experienced hands to the top jobs, Sunak also
risked alienating backers of his leadership rival Penny Mordaunt by dashing her
hopes of promotion and leaving her with no option but to stay in a minor role.
As he
entered No 10 as prime minister, the fifth in six years, Sunak said his
government vowed to fix the “mistakes” of his predecessor Liz Truss and warned
of “difficult decisions” to come.
His first
cabinet reshuffle attempted to maintain financial stability by keeping Jeremy
Hunt as chancellor and bridge the divide with former Boris Johnson supporters
by sticking with the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the defence
secretary, Ben Wallace.
He
installed Dominic Raab, his own key ally, who described Truss’s economics as a
suicide note, as his deputy prime minister and justice secretary.
However,
Sunak made several decisions that have surprised and even alarmed some MPs, as
he reappointed Braverman as home secretary and declined to promote his former
rival Mordaunt.
He also
appointed David TC Davies as Welsh secretary despite his controversial comments
on subjects including face veils, trans rights, child refugees, climate change
and same-sex marriage.
Braverman,
who still harbours her own leadership ambitions, was handed the job six days
after she was forced to resign for a security breach for emailing confidential
policy to a backbench MP, John Hayes, and trying to copy in his wife but
mistakenly emailing it to another MP’s office. Officials raised alarm that
Braverman may have been sharing sensitive information outside the department.
The return
of Braverman, a Eurosceptic rightwinger, drew a shocked reaction from some MPs
on the moderate wing of the party – but is widely seen as a “payback” for her
endorsement of Sunak when Johnson still threatened a comeback during the
leadership race last week.
Mordaunt
almost forced Sunak into a runoff with the membership, and her allies had
briefed she was expecting to be offered the role of foreign secretary. Instead,
she remains as leader of the Commons, after also having been passed over for a
bigger role under Truss.
“She’s been
punished for not standing down earlier,” one of her backers said. Mordaunt, who
was reportedly in No 10 for more than an hour, made clear her displeasure as
she left without a smile.
Though a
number of MPs expressed outrage on her behalf, a source close to Mordaunt said
she did not regard it as a snub.
“She was
offered a promotion. She declined it. She thinks continuity on a tight
legislative programme is vital. Penny could not fold from the contest,
otherwise members will think it was a stitch up.”
The
reshuffle also appeared to reward a raft of men at the expense of women, with
Braverman the only female cabinet minister to get a top job. Middle-ranking
roles went to Thérèse Coffey, as environment secretary, Gillian Keegan as education
secretary, Kemi Badenoch as trade secretary and Michelle Donelan as culture
secretary. It also lacked cabinet ministers from northern “red wall”
constituencies that the party will need to target at the general election.
A senior No
10 source said the reshuffle had been devised on the principles of “unity,
experience and continuity” – reaching across party divides but restoring
several cabinet ministers to previous departments, after the turmoil of mass
ministerial resignations and changes of prime minister.
“Serious
times require a serious cabinet; he’s kept true to his word on drawing talents
from across the party,” the official said.
Sunak met
King Charles III shortly after Truss departed and spoke on the steps of Downing
Street just before midday, in a speech that drew a clear dividing line between
his premiership and his predecessor’s and vowed to fix “mistakes” made by
Truss.
The new PM
struck a markedly sombre tone, without the usual throng of supporters welcoming
him outside the black door. He warned there would be “difficult decisions to
come” in an attempt to regain economic stability and avoiding further
unsustainable borrowing.
Sunak also
said the 2019 mandate for the Conservatives was “not the sole property of any
one individual” but a “mandate that belongs to and unites all of us” – a swipe
at those Tory MPs who have insisted he should seek a fresh endorsement from the
public.
One of the
first tasks of Sunak’s new administration will be to grapple with the £30bn
fiscal black hole, which he is likely to be advised will require deep spending
cuts.
He said
there were “difficult decisions to come” but highlighted the furlough scheme he
devised during the pandemic as chancellor and insisted: “I will bring that same
compassion to the challenges we face today.”
Though
Sunak said he admired Truss’s “restlessness to create change”, he said he was
clear that “some mistakes were made” and he believed he had been chosen by Tory
MPs “to fix them”. “That work begins immediately,” he stressed.
Within
hours, a slew of ministers were reappointed to previous roles which they had
held under Truss or Johnson, including Hunt, Braverman, Wallace and Cleverly.
He
appointed his close friend Oliver Dowden to the Cabinet Office, as chancellor
of the duchy of Lancaster, a role which is effectively Sunak’s top fixer across
government.
Michael
Gove, having previously said his days in government were behind him, returned
to the levelling up department and Steve Barclay to the Department of Health
and Social Care, where he was briefly in the role after resignations from
Johnson’s cabinet.
Grant
Shapps, who also supported Sunak, went to the business department after less
than a week as home secretary.
Sunak also
gave Gavin Williamson a cabinet role without a portfolio, ranging across
government, the second resurrection of the former chief whip sacked by both May
and Johnson for leaking from a security council and for underperforming at the
Department for Education.
But below
the surface of unity, it involved the sackings and resignations of 10 cabinet
ministers, including key Johnson and Truss loyalists Jacob Rees-Mogg, Simon
Clarke and Chloe Smith, as well as Robert Buckland, who had irritated Team
Sunak by switching allegiance to Truss during the summer.
Later in
the day the new prime minster held a series of phone calls both with the
leaders of the devolved nations – something Truss failed to do in her entire
premiership – and other world leaders, including Volodymyr Zelenskiy and Joe
Biden.
Sunak said
it was a “privilege” to speak to the Ukrainian president and reaffirmed the
UK’s commitment to aiding Ukraine, while the US president said the UK remains
his country’s “closest ally”.
Allies of
Sunak said Hunt would have been unlikely to be Sunak’s first choice as
chancellor, though the former foreign secretary backed him both times in the
leadership race.
One senior
source said the pair had irritated each other during the pandemic, where Hunt –
as the chair of the health select committee – had made a case for big Covid
interventions and Sunak had been the man on the inside making a case for
reopening the economy.
Two
Whitehall sources said it had been Sunak’s ambition to merge business and
industrial strategy with international trade, and create a separate energy
ministry. But they acknowledged that a major Whitehall restructure would be
difficult in the current crisis.
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