The majority of Rishi Sunak’s new cabinet served under Johnson or Truman. Concern has been raised in Westminster about the return of Suella Braverman to the Home Office, the administrative body responsible for developing immigration policy.
Last week, Braverman resigned from the Truss government, saying he had “severe questions” about the cabinet’s determination to fulfill its promise to reduce immigration and handle the illegal migrant problem in the English Channel by 2019.
During her brief time as Home Secretary under Truss, Braverman, herself the daughter of immigrants, adopted a problematic stance on immigration by pledging to try to meet the Conservatives’ long-promised but never-fulfilled promise to decrease legal immigration to “tens of thousands.”
Braverman put it: “We have to block the Channel to ships. I can’t believe this has been going on for so long.”
Sunak’s apparent sincerity to “retake control” of the country’s borders, given that Braverman would have likely gotten assurances from him on the latitude to carry out such a job, may be indicated by her return to the position of Home Secretary. The open-borders faction led by Chancellor Jeremy Hunt would struggle with Braverman, as it did under the Truss administration.
Supporter of the theory that mass migration boosts GDP, Mr. Hunt became de facto Prime Minister in the final days of the Truss administration, abandoning all of her crucial plans on a whim and ousting Braverman. Braverman argues that to effectively address immigration, it is necessary to address the shortage of housing, the stress on the healthcare system, and the disruption of social cohesiveness.
Earlier last month, she planned to push for fewer visas for overseas students and workers.
The appointment of Braverman as Home Secretary may shed light on Sunak’s strategy for retaining power in the face of opposition from the small-c conservative wing of his party’s base, which involves taking a neoliberal globalist stance on economics while offering the red meat of immigration curbs to appease Tory members.
Braverman and Sunak have supported Johnson’s plan to curb illegal immigration by sending asylum seekers from the United Kingdom to Rwanda.
Sunak advocated for a decrease in the annual number of migrants and stricter qualifying standards for asylum-seekers during his summer campaign to succeed Boris Johnson. He also advocated cutting off aid to countries that do not accept illegal immigrants who have committed crimes there.
The topic of mass migration will be front and center during UK–India trade deal discussions following Brexit. The last straw for the negotiators was when Suella Braverman vehemently rejected the inclusion of additional visas for Indians in the trade accord. It is expected that as the country’s first prime minister of Asian descent, Sunak would work tirelessly to ensure that the trade treaty has an immediate impact on the economy. It is unclear if this will involve an agreement on immigration.