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Former home secretary Suella Braverman has raked in nearly £60,000 making speeches around the world, the highest of any sitting MP, in the latest sign of how senior Conservatives are cashing in on the international market for right-wing ideas.
Braverman, who until recently was hoping to become the next leader of the Tory party, received £20,000 for a speaking engagement in India in March this year and £25,000 to speak in South Korea in May, according to the new register of MPs’ financial interests for the 12 months to August 4.
The register also shows she made a speech in Washington where she was paid £6,500 in expenses for the trip by the Edmund Burke Foundation, and also received £11,800 for a five-hour talk to a financial intelligence and risk control firm in London, registered last month.
The payments provide a window into the lucrative opportunities available to former Conservative heavyweights who can tap into a global network of right-wing organisations that are keen to broaden their roster of influential individuals.
Still, Braverman’s earnings pale in comparison to several former Conservative prime ministers whose earnings on the right-wing circuit were not included in the register this month because they are no longer sitting MPs.
Liz Truss, who was in office for just 49 days in 2022, made £250,000 in the year after she was forced to stand down, including £80,000 for a single speech in Taipei.
Truss, who was defeated as an MP in July’s election, has begun appearing on rightwing US platforms, and featured in a video with Steve Bannon in February.
Former prime minister Boris Johnson declared an income of £4.8mn last year in the six months since he had left office, including an advance payment of £2.5mn for an unspecified number of speeches.
Former prime minister Rishi Sunak, who stood down last month but remains an MP, has not registered any speaking engagements for the year.
However, none of the frontrunners for the Tory leadership — including Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick — had registered income from speeches in the year.
All three had senior government jobs until the July election that precluded them from taking outside work, with Cleverly as home secretary, Badenoch as business secretary and Jenrick as immigration minister.
Braverman, who was sacked late last year after repeatedly undermining then-prime minister Sunak over policing and migration, also had an all-expenses trip to Israel worth £27,800 paid for by the National Jewish Assembly, and received £14,000 for articles written for the Telegraph newspaper.
The register of MPs’ interests, the first published since the new crop of MPs entered parliament last month, showed that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is the highest earning MP in Britain, making £1.2mn a year from his TV presenting role on GB News. The newly elected MP for Clacton-on-Sea earns £97,900 a month for his work on GB News.
The document also showed that Labour technology minister Chris Bryant, an avid writer, had received nearly £100,000 for books he has written or is in the process of writing.
The payments include £18,000 for purchasing the rights to have his books turned into films or TV shows.
Braverman and Bryant did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
