Pro-Braverman MPs accuse Rishi Sunak of walking away from voters who gave Tories their large majority in 2019 – UK politics live | Politics

Rishi Sunak has been accused by two high-profile backbenchers of abandoning the voters who gave the Tories their large majority in 2019 with his rehuffle yesterday.

Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, who co-chair the New Conservatives, a group of rightwing, socially conservative Tory MPs, made the comment in an open statement they have just released.

While Cates and Kruger stress their personal support for Sunak, they are withering about his strategy, and they say they will be raising funds to ensure more like-minded Tories to parliament after the next election.

The statement does not name Suella Braverman, who was sacked as home secretary, but Cates and Kruger were vocal in their support for her last week and the New Conservatives arevery loay seen as a base from which Braverman will launch a leadership campaign if the party loses the next election.

In their statement, Cates and Kruger say:

We are concerned that yesterday’s reshuffle indicates a major change in the policy direction of the government. The Conservative party now looks like it is deliberately walking away from the coalition of voters who brought us into power with a large majority in 2019.

That election, building on the victory of the Leave vote in the Brexit referendum of 2016, represented the realignment of our politics. In 2019 voters across Britain – from our rural heartlands to the industrial towns of the north and Midlands – rejected the declinist consensus among the parties. This consensus had brought two decades of wage stagnation, asset inflation, high taxation, regional inequality, record rates of immigration, a failed foreign policy oriented towards China and the European Union, and a cultural agenda which denigrated the history of Britain and even denied the reality of biological sex. The public voted – and we promised – to change this.

Until yesterday, we held onto the hope that the government still believed in the realignment – that they would work to rebalance our economy, reorient our foreign policy, radically reduce migration, and restore common sense in our schools and universities. That hope – the project of the realignment – has now dwindled. In political terms, it appears the leadership has decided to abandon the voters who switched to us last time, sacrificing the seats we won from Labour in 2019 in the hope of shoring up support elsewhere.

In the statement Cates and Kruger also restate the New Conservatives’ call for the UK to leave the European convention on human rights, a cause championed by Braverman. And they say their group will be raising funds to help support the election of MPs and candidates “who agree with the New Conservative mission”.

It is understood that other rightwing Tories may be speaking out about the reshuffle in the coming days. But Sunak is unlikely to be overly concerned about the Cates/Kruger intervention. The New Conservatives have only 14 MPs listed as supporters on their website, and rightwing papers, even those who admire Braverman’s views, have been broadly supportive of the reshuffle. (See 11.42am.)

Last night Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a rightwinger very loyal to Boris Johnson who is not listed as a supporter of the New Conservatives, announced she had written to the chair of the 1922 Committee calling for a vote of no confidence in Sunak and posted her letter on X. She said that Sunak’s treatment of Johnson was “unforgiveable” and that Sunak did not have public support. But no other Tory MP has publicly said they agree.

To trigger a confidence vote in Sunak, 53 Tories would have to submit letters to Sir Graham Brady, the 1922 Committee chair. While a few more MPs may have submitted letters in private, the Sunak critics are not thought to be anywhere near that total.

Labour has said that short humanitarian pauses would not enough to alleviate suffering in Gaza.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, made the statement in the Commons, in response to a statement from Andrew Mitchell, the development minister, on the Israel-Hamas war. He was speaking ahead of a tricky vote for the party in the Commons tomorrow, when there is a risk of Labour MPs rebelling and voting in favour of a full ceasefire.

Addressing Mitchell, Lammy said:

Gaza is in a humanitarian catastrophe, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced, there are desperate shortages of basic essentials, does the minister agree that the short pauses in the north are clearly not enough?

Gazans need aid now, they need medicines now, they need water now, they need food now, they need fuel now, a full comprehensive and immediate humanitarian pause in fighting across the whole of Gaza now to alleviate Palestinian suffering and for Hamas terrorists to release the hostages.

Mitchell said that all deaths of civilians “were to be profoundly regretted”.

He also told MPs that the UK was considering using “air and maritime options” to get more aid into Gaza. He said:

We also are urging the Israeli government to increase humanitarian access including by Rafah and by opening up the Kerem Shalom crossing.

At this point we assess that land presently offers the most viable and safe way to get humanitarian aid into Gaza in the quantities needed, but we are also considering air and maritime options, including through our bases in Cyprus.

The hunger marches of the 1920s and 1930s are being emulated this month by modern day food campaigners in the south Wales county borough of Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Marchers will depart from the Cynon, Rhondda and Taf valleys on Saturday 25 November. They will meet at Pontypridd for a rally calling on the UK government to enshrine the right to food in law. Speakers are to include the Wales football legend Neville Southall and manager of Merthyr Cynon foodbank Cleide Correia.

AJ Le Brun from Rhondda Cynon Taf Trades Union Council said:

Like our forebears did in the 1920s, we are again suffering food insecurity and abject poverty. In one of the richest countries in the world, that is an absolute disgrace.

Communications Workers Union rep Jason Richards added: “We will also be collecting for brilliant local food banks on the day, so please bring a tin to share if you are able.”

At cabinet James Cleverly, the new home secretary, outlined some of the “possible scenarios” that might emerge when the supreme court delivers its judgment tomorrow on the government’s Rwanda deportation policy, No 10 said.

While the supreme court is in essence being asked to decide whether or not the policy is lawful, in practice the ruling is expected to be much more nuanced.

In a readout of what was said at cabinet, the PM’s spokesperson also said Rishi Sunak told his colleagues the UK was already “bucking the global trend” in terms of addressing illegal migration. The spokesperson said:

Ahead of the supreme court judgment on the Rwanda migration partnership tomorrow, the prime minister highlighted significant progress made by the government to stop the boats.

He said that the UK was bucking the global trend by significantly reducing the flow of illegal immigrants into the country while other countries continue to see their numbers rise.

Alongside this, he said we are on track to eliminate the asylum legacy backlog and were making good progress on curbing the use of hotels to house migrants.

The home secretary updated cabinet ahead of the court judgments and on the wider work to curb illegal migration, including through more returns agreements, most recently with Georgia and Albania.

Rishi Sunak is meeting Sir Mark Rowley, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, today to discuss the policing of the pro-Palestinian march and the events at the Cenotaph in London at the weekend, No 10 said. The PM’s spokesperson said:

The public rightly expect that the full force of the law is used to bear down on some of the shocking scenes of criminality we saw over the weekend, whether it was EDL protesters or those seemingly supporting Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation.

The prime minister continues to be grateful to police officers, a number of whom were injured over the weekend. They have an extremely difficult job to do and he was grateful to them for doing it.

The spokesperson said the PM would be speaking to Rowley to “get a shared understanding of how to approach these protests should there be significant protests in the future”. He went on:

It’s important that police have the powers they need to carry out their role and we will continue to keep that under review.

Yesterday the Sun reported that Sunak was considering tightening the laws around protests in the light of concerns about demonstrations in London in recent weeks. In their story Michael Hamilton and Harry Cole said:

The Sun understands the clampdown would see:

– New laws drawn up to stop yobs climbing on statues, scaffolding and bus stops during protests.

– The law around fireworks, smoke bombs and flares tightened up.

– The threshold at which cops can ban marches and protests due to safety concerns lowered.

– The law on glorifying terrorists like Hamas is also to be tightened as cops say it is too vague to enforce currently.

Ministers are also looking at ways to restrict certain chants like “from the river to the sea” made at protests by working with organisers to set conditions for approving demonstrations.

The story, which has not been confirmed by the government, appeared less than a week after ministers supposedly set out their legislative agenda for the next 12 months in the king’s speech, which did not include these measures.

The Downing Street lobby briefing has just finished, and the PM’s spokesperson told reporters that Suella Braverman’s plan to include a ban on charities distributing tents to homeless people in cities will not be included in the criminal justice bill.

The bill, which was mentioned in the king’s speech last week, is being presented to parliament today. The weekend before the speech, the Financial Times said Braverman was pushing for it to include a ban on tents being given to homeless people in cities, because Braverman argued this encouraged rough sleeping. In tweets defending her plan she described rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice”.

It now appears that it is this that finally persuaded Rishi Sunak to sack her, not the row about her unauthorised article criticising the Met published in the Times last Thursday. At that point Sunak had already met David Cameron to discuss his taking a job in government in the reshuffle that would see Braverman being replaced.

Last week, after the king’s speech was published, No 10 indicated that there was still a debate going on about whether or not to include the tents plan in the text of the criminal justice bill.

Today the spokesperson said that the proposal was not in the legislation being published. He told reporters:

(The proposal is) not going to be introduced in the criminal justice bill. I’m not aware of any plans for its introduction elsewhere.

Welsh government launches consultation on reforming council tax system to make it fairer for people in least valuable homes

Steven Morris

Council tax bills could increase for up to 450,000 homes in Wales under proposed reforms from the Welsh government as it says it is trying to make the system fairer for people living in the least valuable properties.

The Labour-led government is launching a consultation on how it should reform the system but says it is not going to increase the amount of council tax collected overall – about £2.4bn a year.

Under two of its proposals, bills would go up for three out of 10 of the country’s 1.5m homes and fall or stay the same for the others.

Homes are to be revalued for the first time in 20 years and new bands could be created. The last revaluation in Wales took place in 2003. In England and Scotland, bills are still based on property values from 1991.

The changes are part of the cooperation deal between the Labour government and Plaid Cymru. The Welsh government said:

The current system is 20 years out of date, and it is unfair, with people living in homes in the lowest council tax bands paying a relatively higher amount of council tax in relation to the value of their homes, than people who live in higher value homes.

The Welsh Conservative shadow local government minister, Sam Rowlands claimed the government was “stealthily” planning to hike up council tax for “hard-working people”.

Rishi Sunak took something of a risk when he decided to sack Suella Braverman. Her hardline, anti-immigration rhetoric was popular, not just with rightwing MPs, but with most of the Tory press (particularly the Daily Mail), and this morning those papers might have come out in her defence.

But, judging by their editorials, they are broadly supportive of Sunak. They have not turned on him – at least today.

The Daily Mail in its editorial is quite sceptical about the appointment of David Cameron – “many loyal Tories will think that if Mr – now Lord – Cameron is the answer to anything, No 10 is asking the wrong question” – and it says Braverman “spoke for the quiet majority who care about what is happening to Britain”. But it goes on:

Moving the impressive James Cleverly to Home Secretary is smart, as is appointing Esther McVey as ‘Common Sense Tsar’ to oversee the anti-woke agenda.

Will this be enough to placate the Tory Right? Only time will tell, but any MP who thinks salvation lies in yet more no- confidence letters – and trying to unseat another leader – needs their head testing.

Right now Mr Sunak is the party’s best and only hope of seeing off Labour.

Of the four most pro-Tory papers, the Daily Telegraph is probably the least impressed. It says Sunak has a “bold new team” and it does not criticise the reshuffle directly. But it says Sunak must show that Braverman’s ideas has not been abandoned. Its editorial says:

The seeds of his downfall were planted that year when his promise of an EU referendum was included in the Tory manifesto, not least to see off a populist threat from Ukip. Mr Sunak is facing something similar in that the country is increasingly alarmed by high levels of immigration, both legal and illegal, and extremism. The recent pro-Palestinian marches and the rise of anti-Semitic hatred have brought much of this to a head.

Mrs Braverman articulated many of these concerns, and those who agree with her will be angry that she has been dropped, seeing it as appeasing the Left and deepening Tory divisions.

Mr Sunak must show that this is not the case by adopting many of the causes she espoused but did little about, and Lord Cameron is someone to follow through on this agenda.

The Daily Express is the paper most sympathetic to Braverman in its news coverage. But its editorial on the reshuffle says that she was seen as lacking statesmanship, and that the return of David Cameron “could turn out to be an astute move”.

The Sun in its editorial says that, even though Braverman “spoke for millions”, she had become “a loose cannon”.

Rishi Sunak described his new cabinet as a “strong and united team” as they met for the first time at No 10.

Opening the meeting, Sunak said:

A warm welcome to those for whom it’s their first cabinet and also a welcome to those for whom it may not be their first time …

Our purpose is nothing less than to make the long-term decisions that are going to change our country for the better. I know that this strong and united team is going to deliver that change for everybody.

Sunak noted it was an “important week”, with inflation figures and the supreme court’s Rwanda ruling expected tomorrow and the chancellor’s autumn statement next Wednesday. He went on:

Across all of that I’m confident that we can demonstrate to the country that we are making progress on the priorities that I set out at the beginning of the year – to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce debt, cut waiting lists and to stop the boats.

But their ambitions went further than that, he said. He said the cabinet would make the “big, bold decisions that will drive change”. And he ended saying:

Looking around this table, I know that we have an energetic and enthusiastic team that is going to deliver for the country. So, let’s get to work.

Good morning. Yesterday’s reshuffle was more surprising than expected, largely because of the return of David Cameron, but also because it suggests that Rishi Sunak has chosen to tack towards governing more as a mainstream, centrist Conservative, to abandon trying to present himself as a radical, “change” candidate, and to pull back from a lurch towards “red wall” Toryism.

There was one concession to the red wallers. Although the very rightwing Suella Braverman was out, another rightwinger popular with the GB News demographic (she presents a show there) was in. Esther McVey, the former work and pensions secretary who was born in Liverpool, has been made a Cabinet Office minister. According to a briefing to the Sun newspaper, she will serve as the “common sense tsar” tasked with “tackling the scourge of wokery”.

But will she? Richard Holden, the new Conservative party chairman was doing interviews this morning and on the Today programme at one point he appeared to confirm that McVey is the new Braverman. Asked about McVey’s job, Holden said: “What Suella … what Esther is going to be doing ….” The presenter, Nick Robinson, described it as a Freudian slip.

However, Holden was reluctant to describe McVey as a common sense minister who will wage war on wokeism. In an interview with Times Radio, asked if McVey would be vetting “woke” policies, Holden replied: “I think all of us will be looking at all policy in the round.” And when it was put to him that she was in government to represent “anti-woke opinion”, Holden replied:

No, it’s there to represent – I know Esther, I know her husband Philip (Davies) very well – they have various different views on a wide range of different topics just like other MPs do as well. And I think to try and put people into little pockets of one thing or another, I don’t think is fair.

And on the Today programme, when Robinson asked what being minister for common sense might mean, Holden did talk about freedom of speech on universities, but also stressed that the Conservative party was “a broad church … with a common goal”.

The briefing about McVey being a “common sense tsar” was clearly intended to appeal to rightwingers but, in a further sign that the gambit may have failed, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary and a fellow GB News presenter, described the label attached to McVey by the Sun as “silly”. He told Times Radio:

I welcome Esther’s return because I think she’s highly capable and a good presenter of the Tory cause. I think having a minister for woke is silly and I think it’s deeply regrettable that a minister of the calibre and quality of Jeremy Quin, who was in the Cabinet Office, has been lost to the government and they brought in somebody with a silly title. I think it’s an extraordinary thing to do and is not serious, but Esther is a very good person and to have her in the cabinet is a good thing.

I think silly titles for government posts is a Blairite thing. That is not the proper business of government ... This is ridiculously tokenistic, won’t impress anybody.

Rees-Mogg himself was once minister for “Brexit opportunities and government efficiency”. Given that critics felt both of those concepts were fictions, that title was controversial too.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

10am: Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, gives evidence to the Commons health committee.

11am: The Growth Commission, which was set up by Liz Truss, publishes a report proposing free market policies that it says would stimulate growth.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, takes questions in the Commons.

After 12.30pm: MPs resume the debate on the king’s speech, with the focus on the economy.

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