At midday on Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people will gather outside Hyde Park in London for what organisers say will be the biggest pro-Palestinian march since the Israel-Hamas war broke out just over a month ago.
The marchers will hope their calls for a ceasefire in Gaza put pressure on the British government to do the same. But even before they have taken a step, the protesters have triggered political crises for both of Britain’s largest parties, leaving the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, looking weaker than he has for months and the home secretary, Suella Braverman, facing the sack.
“I’m not sure if they meant it but this demonstration has managed to cause major crises for both parties,” said one Labour MP. “Which is impressive given it hasn’t even happened yet.”
For Rishi Sunak, the week was supposed to be about him. The prime minister oversaw his first king’s speech on Tuesday, launching a series of bills on everything from tenants’ rights to smoking, as he sought to reinvigorate his party before a likely election next year.
Instead, it is his home secretary who has dominated the headlines, first calling homelessness a “lifestyle choice” and then openly criticising the Metropolitan police for allowing this weekend’s protests to go ahead.
Her words have irritated many on the Tory benches, who believe she is positioning herself for a leadership bid should the Tories lose the next election, and some of whom have jokingly nicknamed her “Cruella”.
It is the way she has gone about courting attention that has particularly irritated Downing Street. Hours after Sunak made clear his backing for the Met’s decision to allow the march on Saturday, the Times ran a controversial article by Braverman accusing the police force of being biased towards leftwing causes and comparing the marchers to dissidents in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
What was worse for Sunak’s advisers was that they had demanded major changes to the piece, only to find it had been published largely in its original form without several of their edits.
Downing Street said on Friday that Braverman retained the prime minister’s confidence, but officials are investigating how the article came to be published in that form, and Sunak is reported to be considering a formal investigation into whether Braverman broke the ministerial code.
For many Tory MPs, the row typifies the way in which Braverman has repeatedly tried to weaponise controversial issues to bolster her rightwing credentials before what many expect will be a leadership contest after the next election. Many are getting so exasperated that they are calling into question whether she would have the parliamentary support to get into the final two in such a contest.
“People are just tired of it now,” said one senior Tory MP. “She’s pissing everyone off.”
Some believe Sunak was already planning to move Braverman in a reshuffle that could come as soon as next week, and that her latest…
2023-11-10 10:38:27
Article from www.theguardian.com