Former Prime Minister becomes British Foreign Secretary

Former British Prime Minister David Cameron has been appointed Foreign Secretary. A statement about this was published by the Office of the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Cameron’s appointment was part of a government reshuffle orchestrated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The Minister of the Interior, Suella Braverman, resigned and was replaced by James Cleverly, who previously held the post of Minister of the Interior.

As Politico notes, such government reshuffles are Sunak’s attempt to solve the problem of low ratings of the Conservative Party. According to aggregator Politico on November 10, only 25% of voters want to vote for the Conservative Party. The rating of Labor members, who are in opposition, remains around 46%. 60% of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with the policies of the current prime minister.

The reason for the reshuffle was Braverman’s behavior in the Palestinian crisis. The minister wrote an article for The Times newspaper in which she called mass protests in support of Palestine “hate marches” and criticized the actions of the police, who allegedly played along with “left-wing activists” by allowing such demonstrations. In total, from 300,000 to 500,000 people took part in the pro-Palestinian marches; the demonstrations were accompanied by clashes with the police of English nationalists and football fans who intended to “protect the monuments” of fallen soldiers from the actions of the protesters. The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, said that Braverman was playing along with the radical right.

Cameron himself, commenting on his appointment as Foreign Secretary, admitted that he had disagreements with Prime Minister Sunak in the past. Politicians were on opposite sides of the barricades during Britain’s exit from the EU – Cameron was the main opponent of Brexit, while Sunak, on the contrary, supported this decision. Nevertheless, Cameron called Sunak a “strong and capable” prime minister on Twitter. In his first speech in office, he acknowledged that Britain faced a “disconcerting array of international challenges”, including Ukraine and the Middle East. According to Cameron, in times like these it is especially important for London to “be on the side of the allies.”

Cameron was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 2010 to 2016. During his premiership, a referendum was held on the United Kingdom’s exit from the EU, which Cameron himself supported in the hope that Brexit would not be approved. Even before the referendum, Cameron managed to extract preferences from the EU for Great Britain, including the right to interpret Brussels’ political decisions in its own way, as well as independence for British financial institutions. After Brexit supporters won the referendum, Cameron resigned.

The British government and Sunak personally have a really low rating, says Elena Ananyeva, head of the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is obvious that he is now trying to strengthen his position by inviting an experienced politician to the post of Foreign Minister. Cameron did not comment on the work of his successors after his resignation, unlike other retired prime ministers – Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Now the majority of Britons believe that Brexit was a mistake, and the government is not coping with its consequences, says Ananyeva. There is no need to say that Britain can again set a course for joining the EU, but Cameron is quite capable of helping improve relations between the British and Brussels, she adds. If Johnson’s rise to power was a victory for Brexit supporters among the Conservatives, now Sunak is trying to balance the situation, since Cameron can be classified as a conditionally centrist wing of the party.

Britain’s position on Ukraine is unlikely to change in the near future, and the nuances will depend, rather, on Sunak, the internal political situation in the United States and a number of other factors, Ananyeva is sure. It is also worth paying attention to the fact that both leaders of the two leading parties in Britain – Sunak and Labor leader Keir Starmer – took a position of unconditional support for Israel after October 7. They then softened it, including under pressure from Palestinian supporters, and are now calling for a humanitarian pause. At the same time, pro-Palestinian groups still demand a ceasefire, which continues to be an important factor, the expert concludes.

Cameron’s return to politics as head of the Foreign Ministry can really be considered a “shock comeback,” since it was a poorly predicted step on Sunak’s part, says Sergei Shein, a researcher at the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics. The main reason for this appointment can be considered that the Conservatives are now, according to polls, behind Labor by 15-20% and Sunak in this situation pulled out a kind of trump card from his sleeve.

Cameron can be called a good political PR man, since he was able to modernize the Tories in the eyes of the public, building the image of the Conservatives as a party for everyone, and not just for white gentlemen. Therefore, Cameron, as an anti-crisis manager, will look good in Sunak’s government and may bring additional image points to the party, the expert believes. The former prime minister’s wealth of experience could help breathe life into the concept of Global Britain, Shein admits.

Former Home Secretary Braverman caused a very serious split in the Conservative Party, as her far-right rhetoric greatly damaged the Tories’ reputation, says Oleg Okhoshin, a senior researcher at the Center for British Studies at the Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences. She has been very vocal on the issue of social support for homeless people, calling their situation a personal choice that creates additional strain on public services.

The initiative to expel illegal migrants to Rwanda also caused a great resonance, which only intensified after Braverman’s visit to Washington in September 2023, where she called for tightening the norms of the 1951 refugee convention. Finally, the last straw was Braverman’s desire to ban the pro-Palestinian march in London, which only fueled contradictions in society. In fact, Braverman violated the ministerial code with such actions, Okoshin adds.

Cameron’s emergence as foreign secretary comes amid hopes that he can use his powers to forge a fruitful dialogue with NATO allies, strengthen relations with the US and resolve the dilemma in UK-China relations. It was under Cameron that a “golden era” was declared in relations with Beijing, and the share of Chinese companies in the British market grew. Now Britain has to maneuver in relations with China because of its economic and geopolitical differences with the United States, says Okhoshin.

Britain’s course on Ukraine will not change, since ministers cannot deviate from the established consensus or propose a different option for the development of British-Russian relations, the expert notes, because countering the “Russian threat” is one of the key points of the “Global Britain” concept. Shein does not expect any changes in London’s policy regarding Ukraine.