(This story was first published on 13 July 2022. It has been reposted with additions from The Quint's archives in light of Suella Braverman being sacked as the United Kindom's Home Secretary on 13 November 2023.)
A hardcore conservative who believes that the British empire did good for India, and a critic of the police’s handling of pro-Palestinian marches, Indian origin British Home Secretary Suella Braverman was on Monday, 13 September, sacked by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak
The 42-year-old Conservative Party member of Parliament for Fareham in southeast England was among the first contenders to throw her hat in the ring to replace former PM Boris Johnson as Conservative Tory leader and prime minister in September 2022, but after she lost out to Liz Truss, was appointed Home Secretary.
So, who is she? What is her family background? And where does she stand politically?
Attorney general for England and Wales from 2020 until her appointment in September, and Fareham MP since 2015, Braverman was born in London in 1980 to parents of Indian origin.
Her Goan father immigrated to Britain from Kenya while her Tamil mother did the same from Mauritius.
Braverman studied law at Cambridge and then at the Panthéon-Sorbonne University in France .
First elected to the House of Commons in 2015, she is a member of the Triratna Buddhist community, and took her oath of office on the Dhammapada, one of the widely read Buddhist scriptures.
She was a very strong supporter of Brexit, and even campaigned for the UK to leave the European Union in 2016.
Two years later, she became the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Braverman was appointed to as Attorney general for England and Wales, in February 2020, and after she lost the Conservative party leadership race and subsequently endorsed Liz Truss, was appointed Home Secretary.
Before announcing her candidacy, she had called on Boris Johnson to resign. If elected for the top job, she promised to cut taxes, reduce government spending, deliver 'Brexit opportunities,' and "get rid of all this woke rubbish."
Days after a controversial exit on 19 October 2022, courtesy what Braverman called "an honest mistake" of sharing an official document from her personal e-mail address, Rishi Sunak appointed Braverman to his newly formed ministry as home secretary.
Sunak claimed that Braverman "made an error of judgment but she recognised that she raised the matter and she accepted her mistake."
Controversially, days before she compared pro-Palestinian protests in London to Norther Ireland during the 30-year ethno-nationalist conflict called 'The Troubles,' Braverman said that those sleeping on the stret only do so as a "lifestyle choice." She is also a supporter of United Kingdom's controversial Rwanda plan for immigrants, and called the arrival of boatfuls of asylum seekers from across the English Channel as an "invasion on our southern coast.
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