UK home secretary sacked after after calling pro-Palestine protests ‘hate marches’

LONDON (AA/AFP) – Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been sacked in a cabinet reshuffle, according to media reports on Monday.

It came after a row over her controversial remarks on pro-Palestinian protests and her article in The Times newspaper that met with massive criticism.

Braverman sparked widespread outrage after calling the pro-Palestine protests in the UK “hate marches.”

Later, she wrote an article in The Times, asserting: “I do not believe that these marches are merely a cry for help for Gaza.”

“They are an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland,” she wrote.

Later, Downing Street confirmed that Braverman did not make requested edits to her article.

She was accused of emboldening far-rights groups that clashed with police on Saturday during the Armistice Day ceremony.

Sunak was reportedly urged to sack Braverman, while Paul Scully, the minister for London, said the home secretary is fueling “hatred and division” with her comments.

Braverman, a Conservative Party MP for Fareham, had been in office since September 2022.

Sunak had come under growing pressure to axe Braverman, an outspoken right-winger, after critics accused her of heightening tensions during weeks of contentious pro-Palestinian demonstrations and counter-protests in Britain.

The prime minister replaced 43-year-old Braverman, who was appointed to the post when Sunak became prime minister just over a year ago, with James Cleverly, who has been foreign secretary.

Following her dismissal, Braverman said “it has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve as home secretary”.

“I will have more to say in due course,” she added.

Braverman had stoked controversy throughout her tenure, taking a hardline stance on immigration in particular and regularly wading into so-called culture wars issues which are seen as dividing the electorate.

But her position became increasingly untenable after she last week wrote an explosive newspaper article, without Sunak’s approval, accusing police of bias towards left-wing causes.

In an opinion piece published in the Times daily newspaper, Braverman suggested officers “play favourites” when policing protests and claimed they largely ignored “pro-Palestinian mobs” during the demonstrations against the Israel war on Palestine.

The article was blamed for stoking tensions ahead of a weekend of protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, which coincided with Armistice Day events, and prompted calls for her to be sacked.

Critics said her comments had encouraged far-right protesters to hold counter demos on the sidelines of the main march on Saturday.

Some 150 people from the mass protest were detained under public order legislation for wearing face coverings and setting off fireworks, while 82 counter-protesters were held to prevent them infiltrating the main march.

Groups of men, many wearing black with their faces covered and waving England’s St George’s flag and the Union Jack, tried to break through police lines at The Cenotaph war memorial on Whitehall.

Downing Street launched an investigation into how the article was published without its consent, as required by the ministerial code.