Tory Right backs Suella over private email storm
As she admits series of lapses in phone security...
THE Tory Right rallied behind Suella Braverman last night after she claimed she was facing a ‘political witch-hunt’.
The embattled Home Secretary faced Labour calls to resign over the lapses in email security which led to her being sacked by then PM Liz Truss last month.
In an extraordinary letter to MPs yesterday, she admitted that she had sent official documents to her personal email address on six occasions, breaking Government guidelines designed to limit the risk of hacking. But, in a combative performance in the Commons, she accused Labour of trying to oust her because of her tough stance on immigration.
She insisted: ‘This political witch-hunt is all about ignoring the facts of the problem,’ adding: ‘There are some people who would prefer to be rid of me – let them try! I know that I speak for the decent, law-abiding, patriotic majority of British people from every background that want safe and secure borders.’
Earlier, Mrs Braverman apologised again for breaching security rules when she used her personal phone to try to send unpublished details of
‘Political witch-hunt’
the Government’s immigration plans to former security minister Sir John Hayes.
Yesterday she set out a timeline designed to show that she had owned up to the ‘mistake’ when she was told the plans had been sent in error to a researcher working for fellow Tory MP Andrew Percy.
The Home Secretary said she had informed No10 at the earliest opportunity. But she acknowledged that Miss Truss had already found out after Mr Percy referred the matter to Chief Whip Wendy Morton. She was then sacked after Cabinet Secretary Simon Case ruled she had breached the ministerial code.
However, many senior Tories believed the incident was a pretext for ousting a Home Secretary who was resisting Miss Truss’s plan to relax visa rules to boost economic growth. In her letter to the home affairs select committee, Mrs Braverman said she was ‘sorry for the errors of judgment’ made – and added that she had promised new PM Rishi Sunak there would be no repeat when he reappointed her last week.
But she said none of the incidents involved secret information or material affecting national security. No10 said the PM had ‘full confidence’ in the Home Secretary.
Last night, senior figures on the Tory Right rallied behind her. Former Cabinet minister Lord Frost said: ‘The continued pursuit of the Home Secretary over micro-details by Labour and some of the media looks unreasonable, even obsessional.’ Ex-minister Sir Gerald Howarth claimed there was ‘a very clear Left-wing vendetta to remove a popular Conservative minister’.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said it was ‘astonishing’ that Mrs Braverman had breached security rules on multiple occasions – and called Mr Sunak ‘irresponsible’ for reappointing her.