Suella Braverman denies she is plotting to bring down Rishi Sunak as Tory split deepens – UK politics live | Politics #Suella #Braverman #denies #plotting #bring #Rishi #Sunak #Tory #split #deepens #politics #live #Politics

Here are the main lines from Suella Braverman’s interview on the Today programme.

• Braverman, the former home secretary, claimed that she was not actively plotting to bring down Rishi Sunak as Tory leader and she claimed she hoped he would lead the party into the next election. (See 9.14am.) She said:

I want the prime minister to succeed in stopping the boats. He said he would do whatever it takes. I’m telling him there is a way to succeed in stopping the boats and fulfilling that promise.

If we do it, if he does it as prime minister, he will be able to lead us into the next election telling the people we have succeeded on this very important pledge.

There are elements that should be welcomed in this new bill that the prime minister has presented.

But taken as a whole and looking at the reality of the challenges that are involved in detaining people, removing people and getting them to Rwanda – this is a very litigious field and there are lots of legal frameworks that apply – the reality is and the sorry truth is that it won’t work and it will not stop the boats.

The truth is that when I served as home secretary I sought to be honest: honest to the British people, honest for the British people and sometimes honesty is uncomfortable.

But I’m not going to shy away from telling people how it is and from plain speaking, and if that upsets polite society then I’m sorry about that.

But the point is that we need to be honest, we need to be clear-eyed about the situation right now.

We can’t keep failing the British people. We have made promise after promise [on immigration]. We have put forward plan after plan. They have all failed. And we have now run out of time.

Good morning. Boris Johnson is back at the Covid inquiry later this morning and, although yesterday was tough, today is likely to be even more challenging for him. He is expected to face questions on why he ignored calls from scientists for a second lockdown for weeks, why he repeatedly made comments in public suggesting he would be happy to see old people if that was necessary to keep the economy open, and why he allowed Partygate.

But if you think Johnson v Hugo Keith KC will be the best example today of a senior Tory giving implausible answers in response to hostile questioning, you probably weren’t listening to Suella Braverman being interviewed by Nick Robinson on the Today programme right now.

Although the two stories are separate, they are not unrelated. Support for the Conservative party crashed as a direct result of Johnson’s leadership, and Partygate, both of which are being investigated by the inquiry. And if the Tories were not 20 points behind in the polls, it is hard to believe that their MPs would be at war with each other with such hostility.

In her Today interview, Braverman’s biggest whopper came she was asked if she thought Rishi Sunak should remain Conservative leader if he did not change his Rwanda policy. Braverman replied:

No one’s talking about leadership, or changing leadership.

Robinson replied: “That’s nonsense, and you know it’s nonsense.” He said Tory MPs were talking about a leadership challenge, and that Braverman had held meetings to discuss this herself.

But that wasn’t even Robinson’s most hostile intervention. That came when he put it to Braverman that she was “a headline-grabber who does it by spreading poison, even within your own party”. In response, Braverman said she “sought to be honest”, and that honesty involved saying uncomfortable things.

Braverman’s main argument was the one she also made yesterday in her personal statement to the Commons – that the Rwanda plan drawn up by Sunak did not go far enough.

She also denied wanting to bring down Sunak. She claimed that she wanted him to succeed, and that she hoped he would lead the party into the next election.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary, was also interviewed on LBC this morning. Asked about the prospect of Sunak facing a leadership challenge, he replied:

I think it’s highly unlikely, very unlikely. I’d say vanishingly small.

At this point it is very hard to tell how the Tory crisis will unfold. For Sunak to face a confidence vote, 53 Conservative MPs would have to write in confidence to Sir Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, requesting one. This seems unlikely before Christmas, but this time yesterday no one was even talking about this seriously as a potential outcome. Now it is conceivable.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Boris Johnson resumes giving evidence to the Covid inquiry.

10.10am: Victoria Prentis, the attorney general, takes questions in the Commons

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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