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‘A Trump tribute act’: Meet Suella Braverman, the commander-in-chief of Britain’s culture wars

Analysis by Rob Picheta, CNN

Published 12:32 AM EDT, Sun May 7, 2023

Braverman (left) is the face of Rishi Sunak's effort to "Stop the Boats." She's also tipped as his
potential successor.

Braverman (left) is the face of Rishi Sunak's effort to "Stop the Boats." She's also tipped as his
potential successor.

Leon Neal/Getty Images

London CNN —

Late last year, after a breakneck ascent of British politics put her in charge of the country’s
migration, crime and national security agenda, Suella Braverman revealed her political fantasy.

“I would love to (see) a front page of The Telegraph with a plane taking off to Rwanda,” the
home secretary (interior minister) told that newspaper, referring to her controversial efforts to
deport asylum-seekers to the central African nation. “That’s my dream. That’s my obsession.”

Braverman is no stranger to the front pages. Her self-proclaimed “obsession” with curbing
migration – and the loaded and occasionally inflammatory language she uses to address it –
has attracted forceful criticism from international agencies, lawyers, rights groups and many of
her own colleagues, making her arguably Britain’s most divisive politician.
But among Conservative Party members and the chief architects of Brexit, she is a star;
someone who is prepared to say and do controversial things in pursuit of a singular goal.

“She’s the cutting edge of the populist, radical right-wing strain in the Conservative Party,” Tim
Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University in London, and the author of books on
the party, told CNN.

“In a way, that allows her to say what some Conservative MPs would think of as the unsayable.”

Braverman has railed against what she calls an “invasion” of migrants, holding “values which
are at odds with our country” – and suggested she would break international law to deport
them from Britain.

Braverman's profile was elevated amid a year of political chaos in 2022.

Braverman's profile was elevated amid a year of political chaos in 2022.

Leon Neal/Getty Images

And she is an equally furious culture warrior, borrowing rhetoric from the American right when
lambasting “woke” culture, transgender rights and climate protesters.

But Braverman has speedily made herself a central figure in British politics; the assassin of Liz
Truss’s premiership and the kingmaker of Rishi Sunak’s, she has made evident her desire to
ultimately enter Downing Street as prime minister herself – a prospect that sits uneasily with
much of the country’s political establishment.

A ‘cruel and dangerous’ migration agenda

Braverman, who evangelizes on the benefits of Brexit and has made migration curbs her
political mission, has a backstory that seems to teem with contradictions.

She is the daughter of migrants, who wants to cut net migration to Britain to the “tens of
thousands.” Her parents, both of Indian origin, arrived in the country from Kenya and Mauritius
“with very little” in the 1960s.

She was a practicing lawyer before entering politics, but has displayed an unabashed
indifference about whether her flagship migration bill complies with international law.
And she is an avid Francophile, sometimes speaking in French when meeting her counterpart in
Paris, who championed the project to leave the European Union. Braverman says she fell in
love with France while studying at the renowned Sorbonne university in Paris, taking advantage
of the EU’s Erasmus program that encourages students to spend time in other parts of the
continent. Brexit shut the program off to British students.

Now, she has staked her political reputation on her ability to “Stop the Boats” – an oft-repeated
government pledge, borrowed from Australia’s hardline rhetoric towards asylum-seekers, to
reduce the growing number of migrants crossing the English Channel on small vessels.

The number of small boat crossings to the UK has increased in recent years, with many asylum-
seekers ending up in limbo in Britain.

The number of small boat crossings to the UK has increased in recent years, with many asylum-
seekers ending up in limbo in Britain.

Sameer Al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images

It is a stance that has drawn sharp criticism – including from within the traditional wing of
Braverman’s Conservative Party.

“Braverman has placed far too much emphasis on curbing migration,” said Ben Ramanauskas,
an economist and adviser to Truss when the previous prime minister was secretary of state for
international trade. “Her priority seems to be attempting to be as cruel as possible.”

The government’s flagship bill, which was approved by MPs last week but faces scrutiny in the
House of Lords, essentially hands the government the right to deport anyone arriving illegally
in the United Kingdom. “It’s incredibly dangerous, hostile, cruel, and fundamentally
unworkable,” migration policy expert and campaigner Zoe Gardner told CNN.