Grant Shapps has accused Labour of “trying to play politics” over far-right protests in London, blamed in part on Suella Braverman’s rhetoric, as ministers began an apparent defence of the beleaguered home secretary.
Following the violent scenes around the Cenotaph on Saturday, where far-right groups fought officers in what was billed a counterprotest to a much larger pro-Palestine demonstration, Labour said Braverman had intentionally inflamed tensions and undermined the police.
But in a round of interviews, the defence secretary insisted that the protesters, described by police as mainly football hooligans, had already decided to march before Braverman’s statements calling the pro-Palestine demonstration a “hate march” and accusing police of dealing less robustly with leftwing protests.
Shapps defended Braverman’s actions, while saying he would have used different language, and criticised politicians including Keir Starmer and Sadiq Khan for “trying to play politics with the serious points which are being made” by the home secretary.
He told GB News: “I’m not really keen on the idea that in retrospect, whether it’s the leader of the opposition or the Labour London mayor, that they come in and try and politicise this weekend of all weekends. It should not be about politics.”
Such a robust defence marks a considerable shift from late last week, when Braverman appeared on the verge of getting sacked after a clearly furious No 10 said she had submitted a controversial article to the Times about the marches without making requested changes.
The supreme court is expected to rule on the legality of the government’s Rwanda deportation scheme for asylum seekers this week and there is speculation that Sunak might remove Braverman in a later reshuffle, potentially after this month’s autumn statement. Allies of Braverman expect her to be in the job for Wednesday’s court ruling.
In other interviews, Shapps argued that while the bulk of the 126 arrests on Saturday were among the far-right crowds, this was likely to change as officers pored over footage of seemingly antisemitic placards and chants at the pro-Palestine march.
Asked whether Braverman had in part provoked the far-right violence – a view seemingly taken by the Met police, which said “a week of intense debate about protest and policing” had contributed to inflamed tensions – Shapps said it had not.
“The counterprotest was already going to happen,” he told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips show. “Those people who were going to come and try and disrupt this weekend had already said they were going to do it. They were doing it, in their own twisted way, because they were protesting themselves against other marches.”
Speaking before Shapps on Sky News, the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said both Braverman and Sunak had “made it harder for the police to do their jobs, both in inflaming tensions but also undermining confidence and respect in the police”.
Asked whether this had helped distract attention from Labour divisions over whether to back a ceasefire in Gaza, Cooper said: “I think this is much more serious than that. Suella Braverman decided to launch an unprecedented attack on the impartiality of the police, and also to deliberately inflame tensions in the run-up to remembrance weekend.
“No home secretary has ever done that before. Her job is supposed to be to support the police and to work with the police and to calm tensions. She did the opposite. And she did the opposite in a really damaging and irresponsible way.”
In an overnight comment article for the Sunday Telegraph, Starmer said Braverman’s recent comments, including a description of homelessness as a “lifestyle choice” showed “a total lack of respect for this country’s values and its principles”.
He wrote: “Few people in public life have done more recently to whip up division, set the British people against one another and sow the seeds of hatred and distrust than Suella Braverman. In doing so, she demeans her office.”
Writing in the Sunday Mirror, Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, said that if Sunak did not sack Braverman, “he’s too weak or agrees with her”.
Sacking Braverman would, however, prompt anger from her allies on the right of the Tory party. One of them, the MP for Devizes, Danny Kruger, said the main lesson of the weekend had been that “maybe it would have been best if the [pro-Palestine] march hadn’t been allowed to go ahead”.
