Attorney General Suella Braverman has been busy freelancing for the job of prime minister in the wake of the chaos surrounding Boris Johnson ’s bitter resignation.
But who is the Cabinet minister who has gone rogue?
The MP for Fareham appeared on ITV ’s Peston programme on Wednesday night (July 6) following a flurry of ministerial resignations.
"If there is a leadership contest, I will put my name into the ring," Mrs Braverman told the broadcaster, having called for Mr Johnson to go.
The move was highly unusual - and also came in for ridicule. Usually, a Cabinet minister must resign if they no longer have faith in the prime minister.
And Mrs Braverman would have been few people’s guess to be one of the first out of the blocks in the next Conservative Party leadership race.
Who is Suella Braverman?
Suella Braverman - formerly Suella Fernandes before her marriage in 2018 - grew up in Wembley, north-west London, and was raised by parents of Indian origin who had emigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius.
Gaining a partial scholarship to a fee–paying secondary school, she went on to read law at Cambridge and became a barrister.
She stood in a number of no-hope seats for the Tories before finally getting her big break at the 2005 general election, being elected in Kent.
The Leave campaigner was given her first ministerial job by Theresa May, when she was appointed a Brexit minister in 2018.
She quit when her boss, then Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, walked out in disagreement over Mrs May’s proposed divorce deal with the European Union.
Boris Johnson brought her back into the fold, promoting her to a seat around the Cabinet table as Attorney General in 2020.
Upon her appointment, she vowed to "take back control" from judges who she said were "trespassing" on political matters amid a row about Mr Johnson looking to reform court powers.
A new law just for Suella
The UK Government ran into the controversial situation whereby Suella Braverman would, when she went on maternity leave to have her second child, have to resign her Attorney General position as there was no allowance for having time off from a Cabinet position to have a baby.
Instead, a new law - the Ministerial and other Maternity Allowances Act - was brought in during 2021 to allow her to be designated “Minister on Leave” while pregnant.
The change allowed her deputy Michael Ellis to act up to her role until she came back in September 2021 and will apply in all future such cases for women ministers.
Having spoken out on issues such as transgender rights since returning from maternity leave, Mrs Braverman has promised to fight for the Tory leadership on a platform of being “anti-woke”.
She shocked political commentators by touring the broadcast studios on Wednesday morning before Mr Johnson had even announced his resignation, urging him to quit and pushing her case to become the new No 10 incomer.
