YESTERDAY, the Sunak government finally got round to sacking Suella Braverman as home secretary, immediately replacing her with James Cleverly.
In a surprise move, kept secret even from the Tory-supporting press, none other than former prime minister David Cameron was drafted in to replace Cleverly as foreign secretary.
This required Cameron being handed an immediate seat in the House of Lords to enable him to take up the ministerial post in Sunak’s government.
Cameron, the hated architect of the brutal austerity war carried out by him and his chancellor George Osborne, is another unelected Tory drafted in to shore up the collapsing Sunak government, bringing with him all his expertise in attempting to drive the working class into poverty.
The final straw that forced Sunak to sack Braverman was her blatant defiance of the ‘ministerial code’ – the code that binds ministers not to publicly criticise the prime minister.
Braverman, regarded by many as completely out of control, defied Sunak when she penned an article in the Times last Thursday denouncing the police for being tougher on right-wing extremists than they were on pro-Palestinian demonstrators on what she called ‘hate marches’.
Braverman had previously floated the idea of banning charities for giving tents to homeless people, who she insisted were living on the streets as a ‘lifestyle choice’.
Sunak had demanded changes to her article, appealing to her to tone down her attack on the police, which she virtually accused of being run by secret left-wingers and of not doing their real job. The real job presumably is to protect right-wing thugs and allow them to run riot to smash any opposition to the genocidal war against Palestinians.
Sunak certainly agreed with Braverman over banning Saturday’s march – he met with the Met bosses last week to urge just such a ban.
The police, however, decided that as no laws had been broken and being publicly seen to take illegal action on orders from the Tories, would be a step too far, especially given the fact that arresting over one million people on the march was far beyond their capabilities.
Braverman has now departed, with many speculating that this was a deliberate strategy on her part – to be expelled to the back benches where she would become the rallying point of the extreme right-wing movement amongst Tories.
Facing the complete collapse of the Sunak government, this section of the Tory Party is preparing for a new stage – to build an extra-parliamentary wing of the Tories to act as foot soldiers for the capitalist state.
Bound together by the reactionary belief in upholding ‘British values’, and an ingrained hatred of refugees, foreigners and trade unions who represent the ‘enemy within’, several hundred of these would-be street fighters answered Braverman’s call on Saturday as they attempted a provocation against the pro-Palestinian march.
They directed their anger at the police for not violently attacking marchers, in line with Braverman’s contempt for ‘the rule of law’ when it comes to suppressing all those who oppose imperialist slaughter and threaten the capitalist state.
These same forces are the ones the ruling class is now increasingly relying on to use against the working class to smash strikes and the trade unions.
Faced with a massive wave of action by workers determined not to be driven into destitution, and with millions of workers and youth taking to the streets demanding an end to UK collaboration with the Zionist war of extermination against the Palestinians, the ruling class, in its desperation, is preparing to fight it out on the streets to physically smash the working class and its unions.
The working class is far more powerful than all the plots and schemes being hatched by Braverman and the capitalist class for a class war to the finish.
The urgent issue today is to force the TUC to stop sitting on the sidelines, and passively watching as the Tories and ruling class make their preparations to ditch parliamentary democracy and move towards a police state.
The trade union leaders must demand the TUC immediately call a general strike to bring down this shattered Tory government and bring in a workers government and socialism.