LONDON: UK interior minister Suella Braver­man’s position looked increasingly precarious on Thursday after she criticised policing of pro-Palestinian marches in comments made without Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s approval.

Sunak was facing mounting calls to sack his home secretary after she suggested officers “play favourites” when policing protests and claimed they largely ignored “pro-Palestinian mobs” during recent demonstrations against Israeli aggression.

The comments, seen as red meat to the right wing of the governing Conser­vative party, come after she described the rallies calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as “hate marches”, days after claiming some people were homeless as a “lifestyle choice”.

Downing Street insisted it had full confidence in Braverman but said it was investigating how her comments in an opinion piece in The Times were published without its consent, as required by the ministerial code.

“The content was not agreed with Number 10,” a spokesman for Sunak told reporters, referring to his Downing Street residence.

According to people familiar with the matter, the speech was sent to Sunak’s office, which requested changes that were not made.

Sunak has described a planned march in London on Saturday — Armistice Day, when Britain honours its war dead — as “provocative and disrespectful” and suggested London’s Metropolitan Police ban it.

Police have said the march in support of Palestinians does not meet the legal threshold for requesting a government order to stop it going ahead.

Tensions between London’s Met Police and Sunak appeared to ease on Wednesday after an emergency meeting at which the force’s chief, Mark Rowley, confirmed the march would not clash with remembrance events. But Braverman’s article was scathing about the Met’s policing.

Tom Winsor, a former police watchdog chief, said the home secretary’s claim that the police were softer on left-wing groups went too far and were contrary to the principle of police independence. “By applying pressure to the commissioner of the Met in this way, I think that crosses the line,” Winsor told BBC radio.

The main opposition Labour party’s home affairs spokeswoman, Yvette Cooper, said Braver­man was “out of control” and “encouraging extremists on all sides.”

Braverman’s fondness for stoking culture wars may prove useful to the Tories as they try to overhaul huge deficits to Labour in opinion polls before an election that must be held by January 2025.

Braverman, whose Indian-origin parents emigrated to Britain in the 1960s, recently described multiculturalism as a “misguided dogma”.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2023