Suella Braverman calls out Tory MPs for plotting a coup against prime minister Liz Truss

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Britain’s Home Secretary, Suella Braverman has called out Tory backbenchers for plotting a “coup” against Prime Minister Liz Truss that led to a U-turn over plans to abolish the top rate of income tax for the country’s highest earners.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Braverman said, “I’m very disappointed that members of our own parliamentary party staged a coup effectively and undermined the authority of the Prime Minister in an unprofessional way.

“We are one party, the Prime Minister has been elected. She has got a serious mandate to deliver. She did talk about tax cuts all through the summer in a pretty exhausting process. She is doing what it said on the tin”

The Indian-origin Cabinet minister said that all Tory MPs must unite and stand behind the newly-appointed prime minister who was given a “serious mandate” by the party members after an exhausting campaign to get elected in the top position.

Her interview comes a day after the government, in order to avoid a rebellion within the party, was forced to reverse its proposal to slash 45 pence income tax rate from April next year.

Braverman added that she was disappointed by the backlash that led Truss and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng to not go ahead with the plans during the deepening economic crisis. She admitted that she “accepted their reasons”.

At a Young Conservatives event at the Birmingham conference held on Monday, she also expressed her plans to reduce the number of international students coming into the country.

She said, “We should be looking more at students. We’ve had a massive increase in the number of students coming into this country.

“I do think we do get to a point where we have to look at some of the courses that people are doing in this country, some of the institutions, they are not always very good quality. I think it’s legitimate to question whether that is going to serve our economic objectives, and taking a more discerning, smart approach to the number of student visas I think is highly consistent with our agenda for growth.”

It was reported that India has overtaken China as the country with the highest number of visas offered to students. The latest Home Office data reveals that around 118,000 Indian students received a UK student visa in the year ending June 2022, which is an 89 per cent increase from the previous year.