Just five weeks ago, Rishi Sunak pledged to be the candidate of change, telling activists at the Conservative party conference that he would shake up three decades of political consensus. Instead, he has brought back David Cameron, the former prime minister who was in charge for six of those 30 years and who, through Brexit, ushered in the biggest schism in British politics for a generation. Sunak has been on the back foot for months, trailing in the polls and casting around for something – or, as it turns out, someone – to help him reassert his authority after his party conference was overshadowed by HS2 and his first king’s speech by a row about tents. Suella Braverman’s increasingly inflammatory remarks – most recently accusing the police of bias over pro-Palestine marches and making risky comparisons to sectarian marches in Northern Ireland – were retoxifying the Tory brand and ultimately forced his hand.
Braverman, who many believe was agitating to be sacked, returns to the backbenches to continue with her leadership campaign, having earned the dubious honour of being one of the few cabinet ministers to be dismissed twice from the same job in little over a year. The reaction of the Tory right has been – initially at least – fairly muted about her departure as home secretary. It leaves Kemi Badenoch, who is also believed to have her eye on the leadership if the Tories lose the election, as the main flag bearer of the right in the cabinet. But by prising their grip from one of the big four offices of state, Sunak has fanned the flames of rebellion, with a big chunk of the right of the party not just angry about their woman getting the sack, but also with Cameron’s return to the frontline. One former minister, Simon Clarke, shared a BBC Sport post about Gareth Southgate’s picks for the England football squad, writing obliquely on X: “Some controversial choices here from the manager, putting it very mildly. Never wise to lack options on the right wing – the squad risks being badly unbalanced.” It wasn’t just the right of the Tory party that Sunak took by surprise – although the reaction elsewhere was more celebratory. One senior figure on the more moderate wing of the party, who had been privately fuming that Braverman was still in post, sent a one-word message: “Rejoice!!” Senior No 10 advisers are hoping that sacking Braverman and bringing back Cameron – the first former prime minister since Alec Douglas-Home in 1970 to return to the cabinet – will show that Sunak can be bold and decisive and has a strong grip on his party. Other departures – most notably Thérèse Coffey from environment, where she was criticised for a weak response to storms and floods as well as the continuing sewage scandal – and a slew of more competent figures from mid-ranking jobs creates vacancies he can fill with loyalists to secure his own position. Government insiders hope that bringing Cameron back into the cabinet, leaving Jeremy Hunt at the Treasury and moving James Cleverly, regarded internally as a safe pair of hands, to the Home Office, will give Sunak the support he needs to rewrite the narrative. His appointment also indicates a determined strategic tilt from Sunak towards shoring up the blue wall, with polls showing that many voters in the Tory heartlands backed the prime minister because they thought he would be a Cameron mark two. Sunak’s difficulties in getting a grip on his government – underlined almost every time Braverman spoke – shook that faith among previously loyal voters. Cameron’s return offers them reassurance that the country can once again be a – relatively – more stable place. Cameron started telling friends last week that he was considering a return to the frontline. He has, for the most part, stayed silent about his successor’s handling of the country. The exception was his warning last month that scrapping HS2 would give the impression the country was going in the “wrong direction”. His allies say he is “absolutely clear” that he has a public duty to serve as foreign secretary at a time when the global order looks increasingly fragile – although his own foreign policy record was mixed, with the flawed bombing campaign in Libya, softening the UK’s stance on China, and allowing in Russian money. They suggest that he hopes to play the role of “consigliere” in the same way that William Hague did as his foreign secretary. “The Conservatives are 20 points behind in the polls, the party is in a difficult situation. We don’t want to bequeath a devastating election defeat. David can help with that,” one said. Sunak’s appointment of Cameron is not without its risks. It comes only two years after a parliamentary inquiry found that the former prime minister had shown a “significant lack of judgment” over a lobbying campaign for a financial services company in which he held a personal economic interest, Greensill Capital, which collapsed in 2021. And while Sunak has ditched his attempts to be the “change candidate” and reverted to his previous strategy of trying to appear serious and competent, Cameron is – for many people – a reminder of the damage that austerity and Brexit wreaked upon the country. The big question for the prime minister remains whether, for a public that all the polls suggest have lost faith in the Conservatives as the party of government, a reminder of its more recent past will be enough to shift the dial.