Sacked UK home secretary Suella Braverman has accused the prime minister Rishi Sunak of a “betrayal” of the British people over migration policy.
Ms Braverman, who was removed from her position on Monday, also accused Mr Sunak of being dishonest in a letter she sent him following her dismissal, which she has also released online.
In a startling attack, she told the prime minister he was “uncertain, weak and lacking in the qualities of leadership the country needs”.
She suggested that he was only interested in power as “an end in itself” and of making promises to the electorate that he had “no intention” of keeping.
“Your plan is not working, we have endured record election defeats, your resets have failed and we are running out of time. You need to change course urgently,” she wrote.
Ms Braverman suggested that she had a written agreement with Mr Sunak laying out a series of policy objectives that he agreed to pursue.
In exchange, she said, she agreed to support him for the leadership of the Conservative Party when the regime of Liz Truss imploded last October.
The four main policy areas where Ms Braverman claimed she had a deal with Mr Sunak were reducing legal migration, passing laws to neuter human rights legislation, passing laws to unilaterally override a UK trade deal with the European Union over Northern Ireland, and issuing guidance to schools on transgender and sex issues.
She suggested the items were laid out in a “document” and were “no mere promise over dinner”.
“I trusted you,” she wrote.
However, she said she now believes that Mr Sunak “never had any intention” of fulfilling what she says he promised her.
She said his government’s failure to neuter in UK law the European Convention on Human Rights, which she says prevents the UK from enacting tough migration laws, represented a “betrayal of your promise to the nation” to stop illegal migration.
Ms Braverman said she would support government policy that followed an “authentic conservative agenda”, leaving open the possibility that she could rebel in future on matters that she believes do not fit that agenda.
Earlier on Tuesday, two backbench supporters of Ms Braverman, Danny Kruger and Miriam Cates, signed a letter criticising the cabinet reshuffle that led Ms Braverman’s sacking and the return to government of centrist former prime minister, David Cameron. They also accused Mr Sunak of abandoning working class Tory voters in the north of England.
