The foreign secretary has denied Rishi Sunak did a “grubby” deal with scandal-hit Suella Braverman to bring her back as home secretary – prompting a claim he is “insulting the intelligence” of the public.
The new prime minister is under fire for the shock return of Ms Braverman – just six days after she was sacked for a security breach – in apparent payback for her backing his leadership campaign.
But James Cleverly, who kept the Foreign Office brief, denied a deal between the pair, claiming the home secretary is admired for her “very important crime-fighting agenda”.
“I don’t think he needed the endorsement of any one MP because the numbers speak for themselves – he had a clear lead,” he insisted, on Sky News.
The foreign secretary was told people would be “screaming at the television at the idea that their intelligence is being insulted” by such a claim, after Ms Braverman breached the ministerial code.
Mr Cleverly also suggested Ms Sunak – like Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – would refuse to appoint an independent ethics adviser to watch over sleaze allegations against ministers.
He argued the Cabinet Secretary could perform the role and that an adviser is not “the silver bullet that some people are suggesting”.
Mr Cleverly was unable to confirm the de-facto budget will go ahead on 31 October, as planned, as No 10 and the Treasury discuss whether to delay it.
But he made clear it will rein back public spending – to plug an estimated £30bn black hole – because bills had soared because of Covid and the invasion of Ukraine and “we can’t just pretend that away”.
On Tuesday, outside No 10, Mr Sunak promised the country: “This government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Trust is earned. And I will earn yours.”
Yet, hours later, he reappointed Ms Braverman, who admitted a rule-breach by sending a policy document on an immigration shake-up from her private email to a colleague, later misleading Ms Truss about it.
Bridget Phillipson, Labour’s shadow education secretary, said: “It was a grubby deal that he struck in order to get over the line and become prime minister.
“One moment Rishi Sunak is telling us he will lead a government of integrity, and then another minute he’s appointing someone back into the cabinet who’d been sacked only the week before for a serious breach of security and a potential breach of the ministerial code.”
On BBC Radio 4, Mr Cleverly as asked if Ms Braverman met Mr Sunak’s tests of “integrity, professionalism and accountability”, replying – eventually – “yes”.
He denied her return would block business demands for looser immigration rules to admit desperately-needed workers, insisting openness and control are not “mutually exclusive”.
