“Daddy’s home,” texted lawmakers aligned with the center of Britain’s governing Conservative Party to the liberal mainstream media as they reveled in the return of David Cameron to one of Britain’s great offices of state on Monday.
The former prime minister reemerged from the political wilderness and accepted Rishi Sunak’s invitation to run the foreign office in a cabinet reshuffle that saw Suella Braverman, whom many believed to be one of the only genuine conservatives still in Sunak’s administration, dismissed from her role as home secretary.
And in one fell swoop, the U.K. Conservative Party accepted its fate of being out of power for a generation.
It is hard to fathom that the flailing U.K. prime minister, languishing in the polls and in critical need of a power play to be even remotely in with a chance of clinging on to power at the next election, took the view that inviting Panama Dave back into the fold was his trump card, more the ace up the sleeve that fell face up on the felt and revealed Sunak to be an unserious, incompetent player who is totally out of his depth.
Braverman out and Cameron in? If you ever needed confirmation the Tories are simply not serious about dealing with Britain's mounting problems then this is it. Appealing to Centrist Dads over post-Brexit coalition is such a dumb move.
— Matt Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) November 13, 2023To be so oblivious to the irony of bringing back a man who died on the hill of retaining EU membership as his main foreign policy objective as the politician in charge of Britain’s foreign policy seven years later is as staggering as it is deeply offensive to the British electorate.
As one former Brexit donor told Remix News, the prime minister only needs to bring back John Major as Brexit minister to complete the job.
This reshuffle appears to be more than just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, it’s sticking two fingers up at the conservative grassroots and showing a flagrant disregard for the voters’ firm rejection of the establishment figures of the past.
Despite the current “Conservative” administration doing its best to nosedive the party into oblivion for decades to come, murmurs of discontent among the party’s backbenchers have grown louder following Sunak’s moves on Monday morning, and talk of a much-loved mutiny by the party faithful incensed by Suella Braverman’s sacking is underway.
? Senior Conservative source tells me there is talk in parliament of a meeting of the New Conservatives group later today and agenda item is Suella leadership play.
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) November 13, 2023“Sacking Suella Braverman was a mistake. She understands what the country thinks about migration and the concerns the country has. She spoke in a way that others are squeamish about… but she was committed to delivering,” said Conservative grandee Jacob Rees-Mogg, an influential figure among the right-wing Conservative cohort.
Insanity to swap Suella for Dave: a giant F-you to the Tory right, and bye bye to a whole lot of votes. @RishiSunak appears to have lost it
— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) November 13, 2023Braverman was dismissed for accusing the Metropolitan Police of two-tier policing by cracking down on right-wing protestors while allowing “pro-Palestinian mobs” to run riot in London and numerous cities across England.
The Bruges Group, a long-running conservative think tank well adept at reading the pulse of the Conservative Party’s grassroots members, called the prime minister “gutless” for sacking “the only member of his cabinet willing to speak the truth about what’s happening on British streets.”
“It is a clear signal that this government has surrendered to the mob. Voters will remember this at the ballot box,” it added.
It’s hard to disagree.
