Braverman, who has a history of contentious utterances, accused the police of treating protesters unfairly.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faced mounting pressure to fire one of his most senior ministers, Suella Braverman, after she wrote an inflammatory piece criticising the police’s handling of a planned pro-Palestinian march.
Braverman, the home secretary in charge of policing and national security, has a history of making divisive remarks that have enraged her more moderate colleagues.
Braverman accused the police of applying a “double standard” to rallies, particularly pro-Palestinian marches, in an opinion piece published before of a pro-Palestinian march on Saturday.
Braverman, a likely contender for the Conservative Party’s future leader, has consistently denounced the tens of thousands of demonstrators who have assembled in London since Hamas’s attack on Israel last month.
The rallies have been dubbed “hate marches” and “mobs” by the home secretary, despite the fact that no overt violence has occurred.
Downing Street is investigating how the piece in The Times was published on Wednesday after Sunak’s office staff ordered revisions to the information that did not appear.
Sunak’s spokesperson said on Friday that the probe is ongoing and that the prime minister and Braverman had not spoken in the previous day. When asked if Sunak was thinking about firing Braverman, she declined to respond.
Ministers must get clearance from Downing Street for all big announcements, speeches, press releases, and new policy initiatives, according to the government’s code of conduct. Braverman has not apologised since the piece was published.
On Friday, some Conservative Party politicians urged for her to be relocated or distanced themselves from her remarks.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, treasurer of the Conservative Party’s important 1922 Committee, which supervises its backbenchers, called Braverman’s remarks “unwise” and “unprecedented,” and said Sunak should consider reassigning her.
“We can’t go on like this.” “To continue as we are on these extremely sensitive issues is completely unacceptable,” he told the BBC.
Sunak, whose party is lagging the major opposition Labour Party in surveys, must decide whether to fire the most disruptive member of his cabinet, who may become a rival and critic if she is fired.
While officials have repeatedly asked for the protest on Saturday, which coincides with the celebration of Armistice Day, the end of World War One, to be cancelled, London’s police have declared the risk of violence is not severe enough for them to exercise their legal powers to prohibit it.
Sunak, according to opposition leader Keir Starmer, is too weak to fire Braverman.
Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s finance minister, was the most senior member of the administration to distance himself from her remarks. “The words she used are not words I would have used,” he said to reporters on Friday.
