Celebrating Britain's 101 Most Influential Asians 2021

In association with edwardian hotel

© Asian Media Group - 2024

#GG2PowerList

Suella Braverman


winners

DON’T BE surprised if we see more of Suella Braverman, the current Attorney General – at least after her return from maternity leave.

Her populist leanings and views on Brexit, the legal profession, and on education, have put her at loggerheads with what her ardent supporters would dub, the liberal establishment. The media narrative might be of a combative populist politician, but in person, she is very polite, friendly and expansive, especially about family and her formative years.

Now Attorney General and on expected maternity leave (at the time GG2 Power List went to press), it is easy to misunderstand her brand of Conservativism, which is very rooted in family and lived experience.

Both her parents are of Indian origin, but neither were born on the sub-continent or have ever lived there – her mother, a nurse, came to Scotland first from Mauritius, her father to London, from Kenya, as a refugee and worked in a factory in 1968 on the recommendation of someone who had made the same journey a couple of months earlier.

“Dad got off the plane at Heathrow Airport and he was 19 years old and he was by himself, no parents, no family, nothing,” she told the GG2 Power List in a Zoom interaction late last year.

Braverman is an only child and excelled later in school to win a place at Cambridge, spent time studying in France and became a successful commercial barrister before winning her first General Election seat in 2015.

She represents Fareham in Hampshire and it is one of the safest Conservative seats around – she had a majority at the last election of over 26,000 and took nearly 65 per cent of the vote.

Her parents-to-be met through mutual friends at a wedding in London and Braverman was born in

To continue reading, please register

REGISTER REGISTER
Already register? Login