Former British Prime Minister David Cameron returns to the British government. This time not as cabinet leader as in 2010 to 2016, but as foreign minister. In that position, with his extensive political experience, he had to relieve Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of necessary international work at a time of international turmoil. This will give Sunak more space in the coming year to focus on his own election campaign.

The appointments are part of a wider restructuring within Sunak’s government, announced in football terms by the Conservative Party in a series of tweets on X – as if they were Premier League transfers. The current Foreign Minister, James Cleverly, will move to Home Secretary, with Suella Braverman having to make way.

Police too accommodating to ‘pro-Palestinian mobs’

Braverman’s resignation follows an open letter he recently published in a British newspaper Time published without first submitting it to Sunak. In his letter he strongly criticized the police’s approach to pro-Palestinian protests. According to him, police officers will be biased and more accommodating when it comes to ‘pro-Palestinian mobs’ than when right-wing demonstrators take to the streets. This had a devastating effect on many police leaders and members of parliament.

But Braverman is the main right-wing figure in Sunak’s government – ​​extending the Conservative Party’s football metaphor. According to many, Sunak promised him the ministerial post to gain his support in his fight for the party leadership more than a year ago. Through him he won the support of right-wing parties and became prime minister.

Braverman’s resignation fits the broader picture of cabinet restructuring: a move toward the political center. Cameron’s return is also in line with this. His appointment ends a ‘movement to the right’ and ‘anti-European tendencies’, said Michael Heseltine, a former deputy prime minister on behalf of the Conservative Party. Although Cameron enabled a Brexit referendum in 2016, he himself is a staunch opponent of leaving the European Union.

Controversial choice by the manager

Of course not everyone within the ruling party is happy with this new direction, after Sunak appeared to shift ideologically to the right last year. For example, MP Simon Clarke, again in football terms, directly criticized the cabinet appointments. “Some controversial choices from the manager,” he wrote

Especially because it is unlikely that Braverman will disappear from the scene. In fact, on Wednesday the UK Supreme Court will decide whether plans to send migrant boats from the UK to Rwanda violate European human rights treaties. Braverman was a big supporter. So if the court thwarts the plan, then it will no doubt ask the UK to withdraw from the European agreement, even without a ministerial post. This could further fuel divisions within the Conservative Party.

And with Cameron’s appointment, Sunak also took an electoral risk. Because for many Britons, the former prime minister is the person who enabled Britain’s biggest political crisis in decades through the Brexit referendum. To use one more football metaphor: shots on goal are open for the opposition Labor Party during the upcoming election campaign.

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