Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain on Monday fired Suella Braverman, one of his most senior and divisive ministers, in a reshuffle of his top team that brought one of his predecessors, David Cameron, unexpectedly back into government.
Critics had argued that Ms. Braverman, who as home secretary had been responsible for law enforcement, immigration and national security, had stirred tensions ahead of a huge, pro-Palestinian demonstration in London on Saturday during which the police clashed with far right counterprotesters.
Though the removal of Ms. Braverman from her job had seemed likely since her article was published last week, Mr. Sunak appears to have delayed making that change for several days in order to carry out a long awaited and wider shuffle of his cabinet.
Ms. Braverman was replaced at the Home Office by James Cleverly, who had held the position of foreign secretary, Downing Street said in a statement. Mr. Cameron was appointed to replace him.
Restoring Mr. Cameron to a senior post is an extraordinary turn for a former prime minister most remembered for calling the 2016 referendum that led to Britain’s departure from the European Union. Mr. Cameron campaigned for Britain to remain in the E.U., and when it voted to leave by a narrow margin, he resigned.
Ms. Braverman had long been a divisive figure at the heart of the governing Conservative Party, whose provocative rhetoric won her support on the hard right while alienating more moderate colleagues.
She is widely viewed as a possible candidate to replace Mr. Sunak as party leader if he fails to win a looming general election, and her departure signals the deep challenges he confronts, as he grapples with a stubborn double-digit deficit in opinion polls, a stagnant economy and a restive party that senses its 13-year grip on power is slipping.
Ms. Braverman’s departure follows the publication of an extraordinary opinion article in The Times of London in which Ms. Braverman rebuked the city’s main police force for deciding not to ban a pro-Palestinian protest march that coincided with Armistice Day, when Britain commemorates those who fought in World War I and subsequent conflicts.
She also described the tens of thousands of people who have attended regular Saturday protests in London in support of Palestinians as “hate marchers” and “mobs,” despite the fact that the demonstrations have been mostly peaceful.
Downing Street said that it had not authorized the article, as would be customary, and it emerged that several changes requested by the prime minister’s office had not been made before publication.
On Saturday, critics, including the Labour mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, accused Ms. Braverman of encouraging the counterprotest during which some right-wingers broke through a police cordon and claimed that they were on the streets to defend a war memorial. The police said that around 145 people were arrested on Saturday, the vast majority of whom were counterprotesters, and nine officers were injured.
In her article Ms. Braverman claimed that the demonstrations were not “merely a cry for help for Gaza” but “an assertion of primacy by certain groups — particularly Islamists — of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland.”
That reference to Northern Ireland, making rhetorical use of sectarian tensions in a region where efforts to restore a power-sharing government have so far failed, also provoked anger.
In the piece, Ms. Braverman accused the police of a “double standard” in the way they handled protests. “Right-wing and nationalist protesters who engage in aggression are rightly met with a stern response yet pro-Palestinian mobs displaying almost identical behavior are largely ignored, even when clearly breaking the law,” she wrote.
Ms. Braverman had made it clear that she wanted the march on Saturday Nov. 11 to be banned in part because it would coincide with Armistice Day. Mr. Sunak had taken the same view but last Wednesday won assurances from the police that all possible steps would be taken to prevent disorder and issued a statement confirming the protest would go ahead, pledging to “remain true to our principles” of the right to peaceful protest.
The article by Ms. Braverman, published a few hours later, appeared to undermine his stance.
It is not the first time she has lost her cabinet position. Last October Ms. Braverman was fired after a security breach involving a government document that she had sent to a lawmaker in Parliament through her personal email. At that time Liz Truss was prime minister and, when Mr. Sunak won power, he restored Ms. Braverman to her job as Home Secretary. Because she has support on the right of the Conservative Party, her backing for Mr. Sunak was widely thought to be critical in helping him become the party’s leader.
But while a minister, Ms. Braverman, who ran unsuccessfully for the Conservative Party leadership last year, has embraced several hard-right tropes in her statements and interviews, describing migration as a “hurricane,” the arrival of asylum seekers on the British coast in small boats as an “invasion” and homelessness as a “lifestyle choice.” She recently suggested imposing restrictions on charities who offer tents to those living on the streets.
Apparently unconcerned about the risk being fired, some analysts believe Ms. Braverman will now seek to present herself as a martyr of the right of the Conservative Party, helping to position her for any future contest to lead it.
Her departure set the scene for a wider reconstruction of Mr. Sunak’s struggling government.
