British Home Secretary Suella Braverman has resigned from the government over an "honest mistake" in an attack at Prime Minister Liz Truss.
Braverman tweeted her scathing resignation letter just before 5pm on Wednesday afternoon.
Newspaper The Guardian claimed that she had in fact been sacked by demand of new Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, who insiders claim is "pulling the strings" in Downing Street.
The former attorney general explained that she was resigning after sharing a yet-to-be released ministerial statement, much of which had already been briefed to MPS, about immigration with a Parliamentary colleague.
Braverman stressed that despite the trivial nature of her indiscretion, "nevertheless it is right for me to go."
"The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes," she wrote, just days after Truss apologised for the market chaos prompted by her tax-cutting and high-spending mini-budget.
"Pretending we haven't made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can't see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics," Braverman said pointedly. "I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign."
British MP Suella Braverman tweets her letter of resignation as Home Secretary to Prime Minister Liz Truss
Braverman then launched into an open attack on the six-week-old Truss premiership, voicing her "concerns about the direction of this government."
"Not only have we broken key pledges that were promised to our voters, but In have serious concerns about this Government's commitment to honouring manifesto commitments," she wrote, including "reducing overall migration numbers and stopping illegal migration, particularly the dangerous small boats crossings."
Meanwhile, the Downing Street has confirmed that ex-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has been appointed to replace Braverman as UK's Secretary of State for the Home Department.
Braverman, a strong supporter of leaving the European Union (EU) , was appointed attorney general — the government's legal advisor — by Boris Johnson following the Conservatives' landslide victory in the December 2019 snap general election on the promise to "get Brexit done".
She was one of the wide field of candidates in this summer's Tory leadership election — and may still harbour ambitions of becoming PM.
Truss, who opposed exiting the EU in the 2016 referendum, reinvented herself as a champion of Brexit as trade minister. She won the party leadership by selling herself to members and fellow MPs as the continuity candidate for Johnson's policy programme.
Hunt was the candidate of the Remainer wing of the Tory party in the summer 2019 leadership contest, losing to Johnson by a wide margin. His political career had seemed washed up before his surprise appointment as chancellor by the embattle Truss last Friday.
But Hunt's policy of both raising taxes and cutting spending to appease the City of London and the White House has already proven unpopular with backbenchers, grass-roots Tories and the wider electorate.