Suella Braverman back as Home Secretary in Sunak government

Suella Fernandes Braverman and Rishi Sunak.

London (IANS): Less than a week after she resigned as Home Secretary, contributing to the fall of the Liz Truss government, Indian-origin UK Minister Suella Braverman has been re-appointed to the same role in the Rishi Sunak government.

She is the first woman appointee in the new Sunak government, the BBC reported.

Braverman had resigned last Wednesday over a “mistake”, saying in her resignation letter, that she had sent an official document from her personal email address, breaking the ministerial code.

However, she also criticised Truss, saying her government had “broken key pledges that were promised to voters”.

Responsible for overseeing UK borders, policing and counter-terrorism as Home Secretary, Braverman is the second Indian-origin leader to hold the role, after Priti Patel.

Rishi Sunak meets King Charles on Tuesday.

Sunak kept Jeremy Hunt as UK chancellor and appointed Dominic Raab as deputy prime minister and justice secretary, after the departure of nearly a dozen cabinet ministers, the media reported.

He also re-appointed James Cleverly as foreign secretary, Ben Wallace as defence secretary and Suella Braverman as home secretary, just days after she left the role for breaching the ministerial code with an email leak, The Guardian reported.

The appointments are a sign Sunak is attempting to reach out across the party, given Wallace and Cleverly were prominent supporters of Johnson, while Braverman is influential on the party’s Eurosceptic right, The Guardian reported.

The decision not to have a change of personnel in No 11 will be viewed as an attempt by Sunak not to upset the markets after weeks of turbulence over the Conservatives’ economic plans under Liz Truss’s administration.

The pound rose to its highest level since before Truss’s mini-budget last month after Sunak’s appointment as prime minister.

Raab returns to the roles he held under Johnson, as deputy prime minister and justice secretary.

Simon Hart, another cabinet minister from the Johnson era, has been brought back in to restore party discipline as chief whip.

Sunak also appointed Nadhim Zahawi, another key Johnson supporter, as party chairman, and his own key ally, Oliver Dowden, as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — a problem-solving role in the Cabinet Office.

Grant Shapps, the former transport secretary who filled in as home secretary for less than a week, is moving to be business secretary, The Guardian reported.

Several senior figures quit the government on Tuesday, with Jacob Rees Mogg stepping down as business secretary and Brandon Lewis resigning as justice secretary.