By JILL LAWLESS
LONDON — Former British Prime Minister David Cameron made an unexpected return to high office on Monday, becoming foreign secretary in a major shakeup of the Conservative government that also saw the firing of divisive Home Secretary Suella Braverman.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak appointed Cameron, who led the U.K. government between 2010 and 2016 and triggered the country’s exit from the European Union, as part of a Cabinet shuffle in which he also sacked Braverman and named James Cleverly, who had been foreign secretary, to replace her.
Braverman, a law-and-order hardliner, drew anger for accusing police of being too lenient with pro-Palestinian protesters. Sunak made additional changes to the government throughout the day, naming Victoria Atkins as the new health secretary and moving her predecessor, Steve Barclay, to the environment portfolio.
The bold changes are an attempt by Sunak to reset his faltering government. The Conservatives have been in power for 13 years, but opinion polls for months have put them 15 to 20 points behind the opposition Labour Party amid a stagnating economy, persistently high inflation, an overstretched health care system and a wave of public sector strikes.
Cameron’s appointment came as a surprise to seasoned politics-watchers. It’s rare for a non-lawmaker to take a senior government post, and it has been decades since a former prime minister held a Cabinet job.
The government said Cameron had been appointed to Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords. The last foreign secretary to serve in the Lords, rather than the elected House of Commons, was Peter Carrington, who was part of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s government in the 1980s.
Cameron, 57, said Britain was “facing a daunting set of international challenges, including the war in Ukraine and the crisis in the Middle East.”
“While I have been out of front-line politics for the last seven years, I hope that my…
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