Suella Braverman - sacked as Home Secretary (p394)

[MillionMilesAway]

I think the bottom line is this - because opinion polls show Tories so far behind Labour and have so may difficult issues to deal with and an election must happen in the next 2 years(ish) he needed to really take a big risk - you know, like throwing on a youth team striker when you are 2:0 down with 10 minutes to go.

Braverman has spoken tough on the migration issue (and Rwanda which she dreams about being a success) and that is probably one thing that could get the red wall votes again - if she can make something happen - so far with Patel it was all talk and no action.

But will she ever get anywhere whilst even the civil servants oppose her and probably her views? “Almost as soon as Rishi Sunak reappointed Mrs Braverman as Home Secretary, the civil service was letting it be known that there were “concerns” about whether she could be trusted with sensitive information. Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary and head of the Civil Service, was “livid” about her (re)appointment, sources said.

One MP who backed Mrs Braverman’s summer leadership bid has said: “The attacks on Suella are evidence of the fact that she stands for a position that the Left can’t tolerate but which they can’t oppose directly either, because they know that the voters they need to win are on her side. So they are attacking her personally as a proxy for their ideological objection to the idea of lower immigration. They know that she speaks for the mainstream opinion in this country....”

That's the Telegraph that you're quoting, yes?

What civil servants said is unlikely to be exactly how the Telegraph reports it, given the current vogue for abusing civil servants for saying things like "that can't be done".

I doubt the civil service would make a clear statement as that implies, drawn from one single word of a quote. At worst, it's creative writing from a leading question which a CS answered factually.
Whether it's connected with the injunctioned case about a spy in the intelligence services that Braverman has been linked with leaking to the Telegraph while claiming in court that it should be private, would be guesswork.

 

[domalino]

Many people are complaining about the return of Suella Braverman to the Home Office this week, but would they have preferred the alternative: Boris Johnson back into Number 10?

Yes, if Johnson had won the Tory leadership election, Kier Starmer would have been prime minister by Christmas.

 

[west didsblue]

The point I was trying to make - well one of two actually - the other being the Left can't really speak against her (a bit like how they stay quiet on Brexit) is that if a Tory government is elected and if the PM appoints a Home Office minister who says they will do certain things. Who are the civil servants to oppose it/block it? We don't elect the civil servants do we?

Your comments about the Civil Service are nonsense. They follow instructions from their political leaders unless it breaks the law. The problem with the current government is that they regularly give illegal instructions and then blame the CS for not enacting them.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

The point I was trying to make - well one of two actually - the other being the Left can't really speak against her (a bit like how they stay quiet on Brexit) is that if a Tory government is elected and if the PM appoints a Home Office minister who says they will do certain things. Who are the civil servants to oppose it/block it? We don't elect the civil servants do we?

You seem to believe implicitly that the CS are indeed blocking it.

They are allowed to point out when it's illegal or utterly unworkable, and indeed it's their job to do so.

As the current government have several times booted out the sitting CS official who actually knows how the land lies, and want to be able to appoint their own CS leadership, the briefing about the evil CS grows. Mogg spent half his time abusing them. Patel spent nearly all her time abusing them, literatlly, only for Johnson to not fire her for it and causing his own ethics advisor to quite.

 

[El_george]

That's the Telegraph that you're quoting, yes?

What civil servants said is unlikely to be exactly how the Telegraph reports it, given the current vogue for abusing civil servants for saying things like "that can't be done".

I doubt the civil service would make a clear statement as that implies, drawn from one single word of a quote. At worst, it's creative writing from a leading question which a CS answered factually.
Whether it's connected with the injunctioned case about a spy in the intelligence services that Braverman has been linked with leaking to the Telegraph while claiming in court that it should be private, would be guesswork.

Yes it is the Telegraph, I should have said that. I understand and respect the points you make also.

As regards my belief that the Civil Service seem to be running the country and not the MPs elected to do so - well I get that from watching 'Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister'!

I think if the Torys are to have any chance in 2024 they might have to implement some sort of override of European human rights law and to be honest, they should have done so already. They won an election on 'control of our laws' (and our borders) but because of European human rights and international maritime laws, they have failed on both counts.

 

[west didsblue]

Yes it is the Telegraph, I should have said that. I understand and respect the points you make also.

As regards my belief that the Civil Service seem to be running the country and not the MPs elected to do so - well I get that from watching 'Yes Minister/Yes Prime Minister'!

I think if the Torys are to have any chance in 2024 they might have to implement some sort of override of European human rights law and to be honest, they should have done so already. They won an election on 'control of our laws' (and our borders) but because of European human rights and international maritime laws, they have failed on both counts.

You've got to be on the wind up.
No one's that daft.

 

[El_george]

You've got to be on the wind up.
No one's that daft.

If I was on a wind up I said something like "bin the ECHR" but I am not saying that, however sometimes when we sign up to something which seems correct at the time, decades later it isn't and we should re-evaluate our position - the stuff I have already mentioned and rules on asylum too.

What is so wrong with a country having control of its laws anyway? I thought the Rwanda thing was a bit of a joke to be honest - all that money for such a small number of people, however until a plane goes there, we will never know if it is a deterrent or not. But what wasn't funny - in my opinion - was that it was challenged and passed through all the stages of UK law, but then it still didn't happen, I don't think that is how it should be.

 

[MillionMilesAway]

If I was on a wind up I said something like "bin the ECHR" but I am not saying that, however sometimes when we sign up to something which seems correct at the time, decades later it isn't and we should re-evaluate our position - the stuff I have already mentioned and rules on asylum too.

What is so wrong with a country having control of its laws anyway? I thought the Rwanda thing was a bit of a joke to be honest - all that money for such a small number of people, however until a plane goes there, we will never know if it is a deterrent or not. But what wasn't funny - in my opinion - was that it was challenged and passed through all the stages of UK law, but then it still didn't happen, I don't think that is how it should be.

ECHR isn't EU law, and the two have been conflated in public opinion, deliberately encouraged by the politicians and elements of the media - promising impossible things.
I have no idea how it would be possible to create an override of a voluntary convention without withdrawing from the whole thing - make an exclusion for one group, and there is nothing to stop the next one.

The Rwanda thing for example indicates that there is no UK law which prevents the UK govt effectively deporting a group of people to Rwanda.
The ECHR block was due to a lack of proof that we're not sending people to awful conditions; if there was proof, then it may be a different story. Without it, theoretically individual govts could persecute any grouping they felt like; I'd like to think that no-one wants that.

 

[BrianW]

I have a feeling that if, as a barrister, you become an MP, or certainly a minister, you automatically 'take silk' as the saying goes. There's a special term for it, which I forget. It does not imply any distinction as a barrister.

 

[BrianW]

The reason why we have an ECHR is that governments cannot be trusted with absolute power.

There are some cracking 20th-century examples of what happens when governments are driven by emotion instead of rationality. That's why we (civilised Europe) decided to put in a 'stopper' to resist such tendencies. I am very, very wary of anyone who (to draw a comparison) wants to build a steam engine without a safety valve. Experience has proved that although it can be done it really is not a great idea.