Suella Braverman has gone too far – we must protect the rule of law

Not for the first time in recent years, Britain finds itself in uncharted political territory. Suella Braverman is the first home secretary in living memory, and quite possibly ever, to interfere in the operational independence of the police and accuse a force of “playing favourites” by marshalling political protests.

Even Priti Patel, during the particular circumstances of the pandemic and the Sarah Everard vigil, backed the police. Things do go wrong with processions and protests, but the role of a home secretary is to support the police in their (sometimes impossible) work, and not to second-guess how things should be run on the ground.

But Ms Braverman is different – and not in a good way. Although she didn’t say it explicitly, she has expressed a lack of confidence in the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Mark Rowley, and his officers. She wants the pro-Palestinian march on Saturday to be banned – for her own reasons, influenced by politics – and she is not interested in the judgements of Sir Mark about the impartial application of the law.

The facts are as Sir Mark sets out. Past protests have involved many thousands of people. They were noisy and disruptive, as protests tend to be, and offensive things were said. However, the Met arrested relatively few people, and it acted on the close advice of the Crown Prosecution Service, mindful of the law as it stands.

A situation in which the home secretary claims that the police are softer towards defiant demonstrators and harsher towards those “nationalists” on the extreme right is not sustainable. The last home secretary to ban a march on the grounds of public safety was Theresa May, who stopped the English Defence League from provoking a fight in the East End of London, Mosley-style, in 2011. That does not suggest systematic bias on the part of the police.

Nor, it is worth adding, is it sensible for Ms Braverman to spend so much of her time attacking the independence of the judiciary and “lefty lawyers”. Even by the standards of recent times, she seems to have an unhealthy appetite for authoritarianism.

No wonder Labour – and some anonymous sources on her own side – say she is “out of control” and should be sacked. The question now is what Rishi Sunak should do about his troublesome minister. It doesn’t help matters that he himself publicly hauled in Sir Mark for discussions about the weekend march, and then declared, in effect, that any trouble would be on the Met commissioner’s head. That is not helpful to anyone, either. People may ask themselves why, if the government has no respect for the police, the police should obey its instructions.

Still, Mr Sunak has choices, albeit constrained by the politics of his own party. He expresses “full confidence” in Ms Braverman, which suggests she is being retained – for the time being. Nonetheless, a reshuffle is approaching, and Mr Sunak could take advantage of that to retire Ms Braverman. A smart move would be to replace her with someone who has many of the same instincts as she has, but at least respects the conventions of the constitution and the independence of the courts and the police.

There is no great mystery as to why Ms Braverman, so unsuitable for high office, is in the role she currently occupies. It was the price that Mr Sunak had to pay to become leader of the party, and prime minister, last year. Her support was crucial at the time, and he gave her her old job back – one that she’d been sacked from, only days before, by Liz Truss.

Mr Sunak needs to decide whether he is in a strong enough position now to implement a reshuffle and lose her along the way. It may or may not be in his personal interests, or those of his party. There is, though, no doubt that her removal from the front bench would be very much in the national interest.