Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
- PART II Racism and the Hostile Environment
- PART III Austerity
- Conclusion: Hostility and Austerity as Interrelated Concepts – Some Examples and Some Solutions
- Postscript: Election 2024 – Labour Wins, Far-Right Riots and the Tories Elect a New Leader
- Notes
- References
- Index
5 - Suella Braverman: Hostile Rhetoric and the Escalation of the Hostile Environment (2022– 2023)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 September 2025
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- PART I Conceptual and Theoretical Issues
- PART II Racism and the Hostile Environment
- PART III Austerity
- Conclusion: Hostility and Austerity as Interrelated Concepts – Some Examples and Some Solutions
- Postscript: Election 2024 – Labour Wins, Far-Right Riots and the Tories Elect a New Leader
- Notes
- References
- Index
Summary
Introduction
On 6 September 2022, Liz Truss was elected Tory Party leader and hence Prime Minister by the Tory Party membership, having defeated future Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. She immediately appointed hard-line anti-immigration advocate, Suella Braverman, as Home Secretary. Braverman was soon to reveal her cruel stance on the treatment of refugees and people seeking asylum. In the Independent on 5 October 2022, the last day of what was to be Truss's first and only Tory Party Conference as Prime Minister, Tom Peck wrote: ‘Arguably the most horrifying moment of the entire rolling horror show was when Suella Braverman spoke in a fringe event of her “dream”.’ It was this: ‘I want to see a Telegraph front page, by Christmas, of the first deportation flight to Rwanda. That's my dream, that's my obsession.’ Peck parodies the implications of Braverman's ‘viciousness’:
What a lovely dream. I dream of seeing those desperate people, flown off for a life of misery at my hand. I dream of crushing the lawyers who keep quite correctly pointing out it's illegal and therefore stop it from happening, and ‘by Christmas’ too. A kind of Christmas present to herself. Cruella de Vil only ever dreamed of cruelty to dogs. Suella de Vil goes one better.
On 19 October 2022, after just six weeks in the job, Braverman resigned as Home Secretary. According to Rajeev Syal, writing for the Guardian, reports claimed that this followed a furious 90-minute row with Truss and her new Chancellor, Jeremy Hunt.
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- Racism and AusterityTory Ideology, Migrants, Muslims and the Working Class, pp. 74 - 92Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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