Suella Braverman: ‘Brexit isn’t a revolution – it’s a restoration’

During her leadership bid, Suella Braverman positioned herself as a Tory maverick – a firm believer in Brexit, a campaigner for low taxes, and a defender of controlled immigration. Once her campaign ended, she backed Liz Truss because, she said, she wanted to join a team that would change things. When Kwasi Kwarteng announced he would abolish the 45p rate of tax on highest salaries, she was delighted. And when Michael Gove and others rebelled against the plan, she accused them of orchestrating a ‘coup’.

We meet a few hours after her remarks, at a Spectator event at the Tory party conference in Birmingham. She’s a little late, given the kerfuffle caused by a home secretary talking about a coup. ‘That word has followed me everywhere,’ she says. Kemi Badenoch, her cabinet colleague, called her language ‘inflammatory’. Does Braverman regret speaking in such terms? ‘I don’t think I’ve gone too far,’ she says.