Yvette Cooper tore into the government’s “total chaos” today, telling the Tories: “This is a disgrace!”
The Labour MP demanded to know who was taking decisions on national security after ex-home secretary Suella Braverman quit yesterday.
Braverman was replaced by Grant Shapps during a chaotic 24-hours for prime minister Liz Truss who is hanging on by a thread.
Shadow home secretary Cooper was granted a Commons urgent question on the departure of Braverman.
She went toe-to-toe the cabinet office minister Brendan Clarke-Smith who was sent to respond on behalf of the government.
Yvette Cooper said: “I notice there’s no home secretary this morning unless the member for Bassetlaw [Clarke-Smith] has been appointed home secretary in the last few hours?
“Which, to be honest, nothing would surprise us at the moment because this is total chaos.
“We’ve got the third home secretary in seven weeks. The cabinet was only appointed six weeks ago.
“The home secretary has been sacked, the chancellor sacked, the chief whip sacked and then un-sacked and the unedifying scenes of Conservative MPs last night fighting like rats in a sack. This is a disgrace.”
She also asked: “Who is taking decisions on our national security?”
Braverman quit on Wednesday over two data breaches, but also attacked the government’s direction on migration.
In her resignation letter, Braverman said she had made a “technical infringement” of the rules by sending an official document from a personal email and was now taking responsibility.
“I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign,” she told the PM in her letter, in a thinly veiled dig.
Clarke-Smith suggested that Braverman no longer held the confidence of Truss, adding: “Ministers only remain in office so long as they retain the confidence of the Prime Minister.
“She is the ultimate judge of the standards of behaviour expected of a minister and the appropriate consequences of a breach of those standards.”
During Thursday’s debate, Tory MPs on the right of the party expressed their anger at the departure of Braverman.
Gainsborough MP Sir Edward Leigh said he had “great confidence in the former home secretary’s determination that we meet our manifesto commitments” adding: “Can the minister assure us this resignation was entirely due to a technical breach of the rules and there was no policy disagreement between the prime minister and the home secretary?”
Clarke-Smith replied: “I would also reassure him that he will have seen the resignation letter from the former home secretary where she does outline her reasons and that this was for a breach of the ministerial code, which is why she took the decision to resign.”
Liz Truss is clinging on to power after a disastrous week in which she lost her chancellor, home secretary, economic strategy and faced an open revolt in the Commons.
Braverman’s departure came just five days after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor, with other ministers now on resignation watch.
Last night there was speculation that chief whip Wendy Morton and her deputy, Craig Whittaker, had resigned in fury at the handling of a fracking vote.
Two hours after the vote, No.10 issued a statement saying both remained in post and in an extraordinary update at 1.33am they said the PM had “full confidence” in both of them.
There was confusion over whether the vote was being treated as a confidence vote which resulted in ugly scenes in the Commons.
Cabinet ministers Therese Coffey and Jacob Rees-Mogg were among a group of senior Tories accused of pressuring colleagues to go into the “no” lobby.
Labour former minister Chris Bryant claimed some MPs were “physically manhandled into another lobby and being bullied”.
Business Secretary Mr Rees-Mogg insisted he had seen no evidence of anyone being manhandled, but senior Tory MP Sir Charles Walker said what took place was “inexcusable” and “a pitiful reflection on the Conservative Parliamentary Party”.
Scores of Tories have publicly called for Truss to go and there is speculation that the chairman of the Tory backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady, has already received more than 54 letters calling for a confidence vote in the PM - the threshold for triggering one if Truss was not in the 12 months’ grace period for new leaders.