Suella Braverman rejoined the cabinet on Tuesday, despite being sacked last Wednesday.
As the home secretary once again she leads the home office, meaning she’ll likely pick up her old policies but this time under prime minister Rishi Sunak rather than his predecessor Liz Truss.
Despite only being in the home office for just over a month, Braverman caused a major backlash after saying it was her “dream” to see a plane full of asylum seekers being deported to Rwanda.
She caused further frustration when she attacked “Guardian-reading tofu-eating wokerati” in a strange Commons speech.
Then, she had to resign after admitting to sending an official document from her private email account, breaching the ministerial code.
Having caused such a stir in a matter of weeks, Sunak’s decision to bring her back to the home office during his reshuffle on Tuesday definitely raised eyebrows.
And then, at 10pm, the home office tweeted: “We were delighted to welcome @SuellaBraverman back to the home office to continue keeping the British public safe in her role as home secretary.”
Considering the home office is run by civil servants, just headed up by a politician in a ministerial role, this was highly unusual.
The civil service is expected to be non-partisan at all times, so that it operates efficiently regardless of the party in power.
So the rest of Twitter was quick to seize on the tweet in question, particularly the use of the word “delighted” and the claim Braverman will “continue keeping the British public safe” after last week’s security breach.
It’s worth pointing out that the foreign, commonwealth and development office used almost identical wording to welcome back foreign secretary James Cleverly on Tuesday.
It tweeted: “We are delighted to welcome @JamesCleverly back as secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs.”
However, Cleverly caused much less controversy during his six-week stint under Truss than Braverman, which explains why Twitter mostly overlooked it.
Others pointed out the neutrality demanded of all civil servants – and how this tweet appeared out of place, to say the least.
