The first big test of Rishi Sunak’s reshuffle is coming in 48 hours

David Cameron on his return to government

If Rishi Sunak had been elected leader by Tory members last year, it is hard to see Suella Braverman ever being appointed Home Secretary in the first place.

Instead, he was obliged to try and keep the peace in a troubled Tory party after taking over from Liz Truss by keeping her most notable appointments in their jobs. That is why he reappointed Braverman as Home Secretary, James Cleverly as Foreign Secretary and found a home for Truss’ former deputy Therese Coffey as Environment Secretary.

A year on, Sunak has seized the chance in today’s reshuffle to reshape the cabinet in the way he always wanted. The opportunity proved impossible to resist after Braverman’s increasingly outspoken interventions.

Dithering was not an option for the Prime Minister. He would have risked looking weak and also giving Braverman scope to become an even greater headache.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will rule on the legality of the Government’s flagship Rwanda scheme for illegal migration.

This is not just about whether one particular scheme can work. It is crucial to Sunak’s whole effort to take back control of Britain’s borders. Home Office ministers have previously admitted that “much” of their work to end small boat crossings “will depend on the Supreme Court’s judgement”.

If judges clear the way for the Rwanda policy, Braverman would have milked the moment for all it’s worth. She had already made clear her enthusiasm to see planes taking off to Rwanda, describing it as her “dream” and “obsession”.

But if judges rule against the scheme, as ministers fear, the implications could be explosive. They would in effect be siding with the Court of Appeal’s opinion that it breached the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) by putting people at risk of torture.

Such an intervention would have been prompted a fierce response from Braverman, who has crusaded against the “politicised” court. “In my view, the only way we will get Rwanda to work is by leaving the ECHR,” she has said.

Braverman would have tested the limits of cabinet collective responsibility by talking up the prospect of leaving the ECHR, an idea which Sunak is manifestly not on the same page about.

In effect, the Prime Minister struck now in order to deny Braverman the opportunity to pose as an anti-ECHR martyr.

He may have defused one ticking time bomb in doing so, but the bigger one continues to tick away in the form of the Supreme Court’s judgement.

How will Sunak and his new top team react?

David Cameron’s return as Foreign Secretary has left some Brexiteers fearful that the Government will go soft towards challenges like this, as they remember how he hard he fought against leaving the European Union as the frontman for what became known as “Project Fear”.

Meanwhile, the new Home Secretary James Cleverly has made clear he does not buy the idea of leaving the ECHR.

“European countries which are not part of the ECHR is a small club. I am not convinced it is a club we want to be part of,” he said in April.

“Sometimes when some people say we have got to leave the ECHR, what I hear is they think we don’t have the standing or the authority or influence to make changes or amendments that need to be made. I don’t buy into that. We are a serious player on the world stage.”

In his new job, Cleverly stressed that “we will stop the boats”. So Tory MPs fearful of a lurch to the Left will hope to be reassured by the strength of his response this week to the Supreme Court.

The overriding purpose of today’s reshuffle is, according to Number 10, to “give the Prime Minister a united team to deliver the change this country needs”.

Sunak now has the cabinet he wants in place. He may have guaranteed a united team in the process, but party unity will rely on his ability to show that his resolve to tackle illegal immigration remains as strong as ever.

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