London (Asian Independent)- Suella Braverman, an Indian-origin barrister, was on Tuesday appointed as the UK’s new Home Secretary, succeeding fellow colleague of Indian descent Priti Patel. Suella Braverman is a Buddhist who attends the London Buddhist Centre regularly.
Ms Braverman is a hardliner firmly on the right of the Conservative party, a Brexit “Spartan” who is a fervent supporter of the policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda.
The 42-year-old Conservative Party member of Parliament for Fareham in south-east England, who until now served as the Attorney General in the Boris Johnson-led government, was among the first contenders to throw her hat in the ring to replace Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister.
In her maiden speech, she recalled how her father, Christie Fernandes, had fled tensions in Kenya to seek a new life in the UK.
“On a cold February morning in 1968, a young man, not yet 21, stepped off a plane at Heathrow airport, nervously folding away his one-way ticket from Kenya. He had no family, no friends and was clutching only his most valuable possession, his British passport. His homeland was in political turmoil,” she said.
However, she was knocked out in the second round of the initial ballot of Tory MPs and threw her support behind Truss, who as Prime Minister has rewarded her with one of the highest offices in the UK government.
