Ms Braverman quit Liz Truss's cabinet during her first stint as home secretary, ahead of her explosive letter on Tuesday. Photo: Belinda Jiao
Sella Braverman's furious attack on Rishi Sunak after her sacking may have stunned Westminster, but it is part of a long political tradition.
As William Hague said, the Conservative Party is “an absolute monarchy restrained by regicide.” Some outgoing ministers leave with a polite note and a “thank you”, some deliver a veiled blow, and some hit the jugular.
Margaret Thatcher was overthrown by an unlikely assassin in Geoffrey Howe, and the fall of Boris Johnson decades later began since the explosive resignations of Sajid Javid and Rishi Sunak.
Last year, when she left, Suella Braverman herself criticized Liz Truss. cabinet, hammering another nail into the coffin of the beleaguered prime minister.
And while Labor has a reputation for being loyal to its leaders, that loyalty is not absolute. Gordon Brown had difficulty fending off threats to remain in office until the 2010 election.
Geoffrey Howe
Geoffrey Howe was considered one of Margaret Thatcher's gentler cabinet ministers – a Labor Party colleague once compared the attack to “being attacked by a dead sheep” .
Yet the Foreign Secretary's resignation announcement, which derailed her negotiations with Europe with understated brutality, triggered the overthrow of the most powerful prime minister since the war.
Sir Geoffrey said in the House of Commons: “It is like sending the opening batsmen to the crease only to find, as the first balls were bowled, that their bats had been broken before the game by the team captain.” /p >
The next day, Michael Heseltine challenged his leadership, and just over a week later, Margaret Thatcher, seeing the writing on the wall, left Downing Street in tears.
Rishi Sunak
The Prime Minister is not. a stranger with a damning resignation letter, having written his own when he resigned as Boris Johnson's chancellor.
His carefully worded but devastating statement came shortly after Health Secretary Sajid Javid's announcement quickly turned into a spate of ministerial resignations.
Mr Sunak wrote: “The public rightly expect the Government to act correctly, competently and seriously.
“I recognize that this may be my last ministerial position, but I believe these standards are worth fighting for and that is why I am resigning.”
His letter concluded: “We cannot continue like this.” Mr Johnson was desperate to fix his cabinet and keep the government afloat, but announced his resignation just two days later.
Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid's resignation as health secretary deals a major blow to Boris Johnson's premiership. compared to Geoffrey Howe some 30 years ago.
Boris Johnson has been rocked by months of scandal, including back-to-back revelations about the No 10 party during lockdown and the behavior of deputy chief executive Chris Pincher.
Echoing Lord Howe's comparison to cricket, Mr Javid insisted he is a team player player, but added: “I also believe that a team is only as good as its captain, and a captain is only as good as his or her team. Loyalty must go both ways.”
He continued: “In recent months it has become impossible to walk the tightrope between loyalty and integrity… I will never risk losing my integrity.”
James Purnell
James Purnell is widely believed to have tried to install David Miliband as Prime Minister ahead of the general election.
He resigned from the cabinet and unsuccessfully called on Mr Brown to follow suit, warning he could achieve a “catastrophic” Conservative victory by remaining in office.
Calling on the Prime Minister to give the country a “real choice”, he said: “I now believe your continued leadership makes a Conservative victory more, not less, likely.”
“That would be a disaster for our country . This moment requires stronger regulation, a vibrant state, better public services, open democracy… So I urge you to stand by to give our party a real chance to win.”
At the end of the day, Mr Miliband hesitated and remained in the cabinet, while Mr Brown held out for another year until the 2010 election.
Norman Lamont
Norman Lamont was sacked as Chancellor by John Major when the UK withdrew from the European exchange rate mechanism, Black Wednesday.
The incident fatally damaged the Tories' reputation for economic competence and prompted John Major to replace him with the popular and good-natured Ken Clarke , sending an enraged Lamont to the bench.
In a sound bite that confused the rest of John. As Major's prime minister, he told the House of Commons that the government was “in power, but not in power.”
He said: “I think in politics you have to decide what is right and then decide what is right.” how will it look like”. and not vice versa. Unless this approach changes, the government will neither survive nor deserve to survive.”
Michael Heseltine
Michael Heseltine sensationally resigned as Margaret Thatcher's defense secretary in 1986 with a brutal parting shot by declaring that their “trust base » completely undermined.
His dramatic resignation was sparked by the Westland affair, a bitter cabinet scandal. over a proposal to bail out the helicopter maker.
After leaving No 10, he called a press conference to explain his decision, telling reporters: “If the basis of trust between the Prime Minister and her Defense Secretary no longer exists “There is no place for me with honor in such an office.” “.
Four years later, in 1990, Grand Tory launched an unsuccessful bid for the leadership.
Iain Duncan Smith
The former Tory leader abruptly quit David Cameron's cabinet in 2016. over proposed cuts to disability benefits.
In his resignation letter, he called Chancellor George Osborne's plans “too much of a compromise”, warning that government policies were increasingly being seen as “overtly political”.
< p>He wrote: “I cannot passively watch as certain policies are adopted to enforce self-imposed financial restrictions which, in my opinion, are increasingly perceived as purely political rather than in the national economic interest.”< /p>“Too often, in the lead-up to budget or financial events, my team and I have been pressured to make even more cuts to the Working Age Benefits Bill.
“There has been too much emphasis on money-saving measures and not enough recognition from the Treasury, in particular, that the Government's vision of a new welfare-to-work system cannot be sliced and diced repeatedly.”
Lord Cameron said he 'baffled and disappointed' by Sir Ian's resignation.
Suella Braverman
Ms Braverman quit Liz Truss's cabinet during her first stint as Home Secretary just over a year ago, and it was a precursor to her explosive letter today
She made a thinly veiled criticism of Britain's shortest-lived prime minister, who would ultimately resign the next day.
Ms Braverman wrote: “The point is… that the government relies on people to take responsibility for their mistakes.
“Pretend we haven't made mistakes, act like no one sees that we've made them, and hope that everything will magically get better is not a serious policy.”
Foreshadowing criticism she would later level at Ms Truss's successor, the outgoing Home Secretary added: “We [have] broken key promises made to our voters.”
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