If new British prime minister Rishi Sunak was brought in to clean up the economic mess left by his predecessor Liz Truss, he has hobbled himself at the outset.
Restoring Suella Braverman as home secretary days after she resigned for breaching ministerial code by sending official documents from her private email was her reward for backing Sunak as the new prime minster. But if he was hoping to bring some much-needed discipline and unity to a Conservative Party in disarray, appointing Braverman was a dreadful early move as leader.
Sunak has left himself vulnerable to immediate and effective attacks from the opposition benches with Labour leader Keir Starmer lambasting him last week for agreeing a “grubby deal” with Braverman to reappoint her. She has threatened national security with her loose handling of sensitive government material and her appointment aggravates the English Channel migrant crisis.
Braverman’s incendiary rhetoric, describing record numbers of migrants crossing the channel in small boats as an “invasion on our southern coast”, appeals to the hard-right now calling the shots in the Conservative Party. But leaving a divisive home secretary in charge of such shocking mismanagement of a faltering immigration system shines a daily spotlight on a long-running Tory failure. It undermines the party’s prized hardline stance on securing borders and policing illegal migration.
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It is not as if Sunak does not have other major problems. The Bank of England warned last week that the UK is on the verge of the longest recession on record. A new budget plan is expected to include significant tax increases and spending cuts.
While reappointing Braverman makes it difficult for Sunak to show voters he is turning a corner after the costly psychodrama of the Boris Johnson-Truss premierships, the fiscal pain still to be applied will be a reminder of calamitous Tory missteps. Regardless of the solutions the new UK prime minister proposes, much damage has already been done.