Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to sack Suella Braverman after she ignored Downing Street advice and published an explosive article accusing the Metropolitan police of political bias.
Amid claims that the prime minister is too weak to remove the home secretary, ministers joined with senior police officers in accusing Braverman of stoking “hatred and division” before a pro-Palestinian march on Saturday.
Five opposition parties publicly called for her removal from office on Thursday after Downing Street said the Times article – in which Braverman claimed that unnamed police officers were guilty of “double standards” and “played favourites when it comes to demonstrators” – had not been signed off.
Inquiries have been launched into the article after changes demanded by No 10 officials before publication did not appear. A Downing Street spokesperson said the prime minister retained confidence in the home secretary.
Politicians from Northern Ireland claimed the article had damaged the likelihood of a return to a functioning democracy in Stormont, after Braverman described recent protests in central London as an “assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland”.
Labour sought to pile pressure on Sunak over Braverman’s remarks and demanded an investigation into an apparent breach of ministerial rules.
The shadow cabinet minister Pat McFadden has written to Sunak warning him that to “do nothing” would be a “display of weakness”.
“To say that the article was not cleared and then do nothing about it would strip you of all authority over the home secretary and leave her free to continue to say and do whatever she likes with no fear of sanction from you,” he said.
The ministerial code states that the policy content and timing of all major releases should be cleared by No 10 “to ensure the effective coordination of cabinet business”.
Braverman’s article was written in response to the announcement on Wednesday by the Met police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, that he did not have grounds to ban a march due to take place on Armistice Day.
In the article, she said “pro-Palestinian mobs” were “largely ignored” by officers “even when clearly breaking the law”.
Labour, the Scottish National party, the Alliance party, the SDLP and the Liberal Democrats called for Braverman to be sacked for interfering in the operational independence of the police and ignoring ministerial protocol.
In the Commons, the Home Office minister Chris Philp suggested it was “reasonable” for politicians to raise concerns and make sure the police were protecting communities. He said Braverman was not in the chamber because she was “with a close family member who is having a hospital operation this morning”.
Senior Tories appeared to back away from supporting Braverman, with only two backbench colleagues supporting her criticisms of the police in an urgent Commons question.
One government minister has suggested that Braverman is fuelling “hatred and division” with her comments about Saturday’s march.
Paul Scully, the minister for London, urged the home secretary to focus instead on “dampening things down” and calming tensions.
He told the BBC’s Newsnight programme: “I think we have got to focus on lowering the temperature, we absolutely have, that is what we have got to focus on doing.”
When asked whether Braverman’s position as home secretary was tenable, Scully said: “I would just say to every minister and every political leader: we have got to use our language carefully and we have got to make sure that we concentrate on dampening things down rather than fuelling that hatred and division.”
Rejecting Braverman’s claims, the transport secretary, Mark Harper, said police forces “are focused on upholding the law without fear or favour”.
Nickie Aiken, the Tory deputy chair and MP for the central London constituency that includes the Cenotaph, said Braverman’s comments were dangerous.
“The police should never be involved in politics and politicians should never get involved in policing operations. The police must police without fear or favour and it is a very dangerous precedent to state otherwise,” she said.
Party sources said the chief whips’ office had been inundated with complaints against Braverman, which had been passed to No 10.
One senior MP said: “Sunak has to sack her because Downing Street has now admitted that they asked her to make changes to a controversial article and she didn’t. He doesn’t have a choice.”
Braverman was sacked last year by the then prime minister Liz Truss for breaching the ministerial code after sending an official document to her close ally Sir John Hayes.
She remains popular with dozens of hard-right backbench Tories, who could revolt if it appears that she has been sacked unfairly or if it upsets the delicate political balance in the cabinet, sources said.
Some rightwing Tories have offered Braverman support. Miriam Cates, the MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge and a leading member of the New Conservatives, said she “absolutely” backed the home secretary.
“I think she’s reflecting the public mood. The reaction to what she says in what you might call the Westminster bubble doesn’t really reflect what the rest of the public think,” she said.
Police chiefs have privately said Braverman’s intervention is the worst example of political inference they have seen.
The UK’s former top counter-terrorism officer Neil Basu told the Guardian that Braverman’s repeated criticisms meant she had lost the confidence of the police and merited her instant dismissal.
“What she is doing is saying do as I say and if you don’t and it goes wrong, I will have your head … She is starting us on a road where politicians will dictate what police officers do.”
Sunak’s government will discover next Wednesday whether its flagship immigration policy of sending asylum seekers to Rwanda is lawful.
The supreme court will give its judgment after the Home Office challenged a court of appeal ruling that the multimillion-pound deal to send deported asylum seekers to the east African nation was unlawful.
If the decision goes against the government, Sunak is expected to come under intense pressure from the right of his party – including Braverman – to promise to leave the European convention on human rights.
Additional reporting by Kiran Stacey.