Rwanda dreams and the wokerati: the many controversies of Suella Braverman

Suella Braverman is seemingly unable to walk past a political dispute without stirring the pot. Hailed by rightwing Conservatives as a voice of common sense, but viewed by others in the party as a career-obsessed populist contrarian, she has been involved in numerous controversies. Here are a few:

Cultural Marxism

In 2019, on the backbenches after resigning as a Brexit minister under Theresa May, Braverman was criticised by Jewish groups after saying in a speech that the UK was “engaged in a battle against cultural Marxism”. While she was talking about censorship, the term centres around a conspiracy theory that Marxist scholars of the Frankfurt school in inter-war Germany devised a manipulative programme of progressive politics intended to undermine western democracies. Many of the academics were Jewish, and the concept is closely associated with antisemitic ideas.

Breaking international law

Plans within the internal markets bill for the UK to break international law by unilaterally amending the Brexit withdrawal agreement under Boris Johson was not Braverman’s idea. However, as attorney general she was condemned by some lawyers for enthusiastically defending it – and did not win friends in Labour for calling the opposition MP Ellie Reeves “emotional” in a Commons debate.

Her Rwanda ‘dream’

The scheme to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was devised under Johnson, but Braverman is its most vocal promoter – not least in October last year, when as Liz Truss’s home secretary she was filmed saying it was her “dream” to see such flights happen.

Suella Braverman disembarking from a plane in Rwanda. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PATofu-eating wokerati

Also under Truss, Braverman made perhaps her most lasting contribution to the political lexicon in responding to environmental protests. These were the fault of, she told the Commons, “the coalition of chaos – it’s the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati”, words that some opponents immediately adopted as a badge of honour.

Being ousted as home secretary

As Truss’s home secretary, Braverman was unable to last as long in the job as even her boss. Amid the dying moments of the 49-day administration Braverman was ordered to resign for sending an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP, a serious breach of ministerial rules, making her the shortest-serving home secretary since 1834. Her reappointment to the role six days later under Sunak was something of a controversy in itself, if not one of her (direct) making.

Falling out with the police over golly dolls

In a row ostensibly trivial, but which opponents argue demonstrated Braverman’s accuse-first-think-later approach to her job, she was contradicted by Essex police after her team briefed a newspaper that the home secretary had reprimanded the force for seizing racist golly dolls from a pub. As it turned out, no such contact had been made, with sources saying the Home Office eventually apologised to the force.

‘Racist’ rhetoric over sexual abuse

One of Braverman’s most serious controversies saw her accused of racism by Sayeeda Warsi, the first Asian person to chair the Tory party, and told by child protection experts that she had probably made children less safe. Tackling the issue of so-called grooming gangs, Braverman singled out British Pakistani men as responsible, blaming cultural ideas “totally at odds” with British values.

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Braverman’s statement that there was an ‘invasion on our southern coast’ prompted condemnation from migration charities. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PAThe ‘invasion’ of small boats

Another notable row came when Braverman referred to the arrival of asylum seekers in small boats from across the Channel as “the invasion on our southern coast”. This prompted not just condemnation from migration charities, but a direct challenge in person from Joan Salter, an 83-year-old survivor of the Holocaust, who told Braverman such language was reminiscent of rhetoric the Nazis used to justify murdering her family.

A few months later, at the Conservative conference, Braverman made a notably populist speech warning about a “hurricane” of mass migration and attacking the “luxury beliefs” of liberal-leaning people.

‘Hate marches’

The most recent spate of Conservative MPs distancing themselves from Braverman’s views came as she began calling pro-Palestine demonstrations “hate marches”, words that greatly angered peace activists.

The lifestyle choice

Perhaps the biggest instance of fellow Tories inching away came when Braverman justified a mooted plan to stop charities giving tents to homeless people by saying these were often “occupied by people, many of them from abroad, living on the streets as a lifestyle choice”. Among a flurry of criticism, Sunak was among those who declined to endorse this view.