London Calling: How does India look from afar? Looming world power or dysfunctional democracy? And what’s happening in Britain, and the West, that India needs to know about and perhaps learn from? This fortnightly column helps forge the connections so essential in our globalising world.
When a cricket team recalls to the crease a long-gone former captain, it’s usually a sign of desperation. And it doesn’t often lead to victory. It could, just could, be a masterstroke. More often, however well regarded the hero of yesteryear may be, he usually succeeds only in showing why everyone thought his innings was long over.
The return of David Cameron to the top rank of politics seven years after he stepped down as Prime Minister is one of those eye-rubbing moments. Can this really be happening?
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty
Rishi Sunak has appointed Cameron to be Britain’s new foreign secretary, which will put him in charge of some of the biggest issues facing the government: its stand on the Israel-Gaza conflict; how to support Ukraine in its war with Russia; and improving relations with Britain’s nearest neighbours, which have never recovered from Brexit. Cameron is also seen as an advocate of engaging with China rather than keeping Beijing at a distance.
In his first comment after the appointment, Cameron described Rishi Sunak as a ‘strong and capable’ leader and said he intended to ‘help him deliver the security and prosperity our country needs’.
David Cameron won two general elections for the Conservatives but stood down as prime minister after calling, and losing, the Brexit referendum on leaving the European Union in 2016. He promptly stepped back from political life and is no longer a Member of Parliament. To take up his new role, Cameron is being appointed to the unelected second chamber of Parliament, the House of Lords – it’s very unusual for one of the most senior roles in government to be held by someone in the House of Lords.
This is Rishi Sunak’s “back to the future” moment. He is summoning a figure from the party’s past to try to improve its future prospects. He wants a cabinet which is united and loyal to him ahead of a general election expected in about a year’s time. If the opinion polls are borne out, Sunak’s Conservatives are heading to an abject defeat.
The cabinet reshuffle that has led to David Cameron’s political rebirth probably wasn’t long-planned. It’s a consequence of Sunak’s decision to sack another of his top team, the home secretary, Suella Braverman, for persistently going off-message in her public remarks. Her latest incendiary comments have been to denounce huge pro-Palestine protests in London as ‘hate marches’ and to accuse London’s police of political bias in the way they deal with these demonstrations.
Braverman had become a liability. Her comments last week clearly undermined confidence in the police – exactly the opposite of what you would expect a home secretary, the minister in charge of law and order, to do. She accused London’s police of left-wing bias in dealing with protests demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and publicly – but unsuccessfully – urged the police to ban the most recent march on Saturday which was attended by half-a-million or so people.
Suella Braverman has form when it comes to eye-catching and deeply illiberal remarks: she has described the flow of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel in small boats as an invasion; she has championed the bizarre scheme to offload some of these illegal immigrants to Rwanda in central Africa; she recently said that some of the homeless, camping on city centre pavements in cheap, tiny tents, had made a lifestyle choice, suggesting that’s the way they wanted to live.
Why has Braverman made such a string of inflammatory comments? Well, probably because she really believes what she’s saying. She is on the right wing of the Conservative Party, a determined Brexiteer, who believes in a smaller state, lower taxes, and putting Britain and the British first.
But there’s more to it. She is also campaigning for her next job.
Braverman has already run once for leader of the Conservative Party and did better than expected. She is positioning herself to be the right-wing candidate for party leader whenever there is a vacancy. If Sunak loses the next general election, he will probably stand down as Conservative leader. And given the right-wing fervour among the Conservative rank-and-file, who make the final choice, she stands a fair chance of replacing him as leader.
Suella Braverman – born Sue-Ellen Fernandes – has an interesting backstory. Her parents are from Africa (Kenya and Mauritius) and of Indian ancestry. Her father is a Christian of Goan heritage; her mother has a Tamil Hindu background. Braverman is a Cambridge-educated barrister, and a member of the Triratna Buddhist community. Her husband is Jewish.
As well as being of Indian heritage, Braverman has something else in common with Rishi Sunak. She’s young for someone reaching to top ranks of politics – 43, and just a month older than the prime minister.
By sacking Braverman, Sunak has sought to establish his authority over a fractious cabinet. And in bringing back David Cameron, Sunak has turned to an experienced colleague who he can be confident is not conspiring to take his job.
