Following Johnson announcing his resignation in July 2022, Braverman stood as a candidate to succeed him in the July–September Conservative Party leadership election; she was eliminated from the ballot after the second round of voting.

Braverman resigned as home secretary on 19 October 2022 following public claims that she had broken the Ministerial Code after having sent a Cabinet document using her personal email address.

She is named after the character Sue Ellen Ewing from the American television soap opera Dallas, of which her mother was a fan, but Sue-Ellen was abbreviated to Suella by her primary school teachers.

[11] Braverman lived in France for two years, as an Erasmus Programme student and then as an Entente Cordiale Scholar, where she studied for a master's degree in European and French law at Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

[13][14] She completed pupillage at 2–3 Gray's Inn Square (now Cornerstone Barristers)[15] but did not start tenancy there, beginning practice at the London branch of a large Birmingham set, No5 Chambers.

[29] She has taken a particular interest in education, home affairs and justice and has written for The Daily Telegraph, Bright Blue, i News, HuffPost, Brexit Central and ConservativeHome.

Journalist Dawn Foster challenged Braverman's use of the term "cultural Marxism", highlighting its antisemitic history and stating it was a theory in the manifesto of the mass murderer Anders Breivik.

[57] In August 2022, The Guardian reported that Braverman's leadership campaign had received a £10,000 donation from a company owned by the climate change denier Terence Mordaunt.

[62] In October 2022, in the midst of a speech advocating for the government's Public Order Bill, she held responsible the "coalition of chaos" formed by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the progressive activists she referred to as the "Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati," for the series of protests that led to disruptive scenarios on the streets of London.

She said that her departure was because she had made an "honest mistake" by sharing an official document from her personal email address with a colleague in Parliament, Sir John Hayes, an action which breached the Ministerial Code.

[74] There were demands by Labour and the Liberal Democrats, as well as Conservative MP Caroline Nokes, for an inquiry into Braverman's return to the cabinet despite the alleged security breach.

These recommendations, which had been accepted by then home secretary Priti Patel, concerned organizing reconciliation events, enhancing the powers of the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, and committing to the establishment of a Migrants' Commissioner.

[82] The judges concluded that government officials were mistaken in placing their trust in unsupported guarantees from Rwanda, where it was acknowledged that inadequate procedures would be enhanced.

[83] Braverman's comments on illegal immigration have spoken of "invasion" and on child protection from "grooming gangs" – language criticised by "Tory MPs, peers and activists", alongside international agencies and rights groups, as inflammatory,[84][85] with Sayeeda Warsi calling it "racist rhetoric", and an anonymous former senior minister under Boris Johnson saying "Conservative reputation on discrimination has dropped to a new low" on Braverman's watch.

"[92] Ruling on a complaint made about an article in The Mail on Sunday written by Braverman, Ipso said in September 2023 that her comment about British-Pakistani men's involvement in child sexual abuse gangs was "significantly misleading".

The proposal was implemented in August of the same year[94][95] and sparked a notable political response amongst both Labour and Conservative MPs due to the backdrop of the Home Office's escalated stringent policies targeting refugees, intended to curtail the frequency of small boat crossings amid the European migrant crisis.

[100] In July 2023, Braverman personally intervened to prevent Siyabonga Twala, a British resident who had travelled from Manchester to Istanbul for a family holiday, from returning to the UK, ordering his exclusion "on the basis of serious criminality" in relation to a cannabis offence five years previously.

[102] In November 2023, Braverman proposed new laws in England and Wales to limit the use of tents by homeless people, stating that many of them see it as "a lifestyle choice".

She said the government would always support those who were genuinely homeless, but planned to stop "those who cause nuisance and distress to other people by pitching tents in public spaces, aggressively begging, stealing, taking drugs, littering and blighting our communities."

[105] Following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Braverman said in a letter to chief constables in England and Wales: "I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as: 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free' (...) in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offence", adding that "Behaviours that are legitimate in some circumstances, for example the waving of a Palestinian flag, may not be legitimate such as when intended to glorify acts of terrorism".

[110] Braverman wrote an opinion piece that was published in The Times on 8 November which included a statement that there was "a perception that senior police officers play favourites when it comes to protesters" and were tougher on right-wing extremists than pro-Palestinian "mobs".

[110] The Telegraph throws doubt on this view, reporting that David Cameron was offered the role of foreign secretary on 7 November 2023, the day before Braverman's Times article was published.

[113] In December 2023, Braverman delivered a speech in the House of Commons in which she argued that "the Conservative Party faces electoral oblivion" if the Government's policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda was not introduced.

[117] In August 2024, it was disclosed that Braverman had given several paid speeches internationally, including in India, South Korea, and the United States, and had earned nearly £60,000 from these engagements.

A fair, decent and reasonable society should question the dilution of our sense of duty, the demotion of our grasp of responsibility and our virtual abandonment of the spirit of civic obligation.

"[129] In July 2024 Braverman in a speech at the National Conservatism conference in Washington DC said that the Conservative Party had failed to 'stop the lunatic woke virus' after a Pride flag was flown at the Home Office.

But we will not be able to sustain an asylum system if in effect, simply being gay, or a woman, and fearful of discrimination in your country of origin, is sufficient to qualify for protection.

[146][141] Nine organisations wrote a letter to the Bar Standards Board in May 2023 alleging that Braverman had violated the Bar's code of conduct regarding "racist sentiments and discriminatory narratives"[147] They referred to comments Braverman made in 2022, referring to people reaching the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats as an 'invasion',[148] as well as comments about sexual grooming gang members being predominantly British-Pakistani men who "hold cultural values totally at odds with British values".

[149][147] Braverman's details on the No5 Chambers website state that she "is a contributor to Philip Kolvin QC's book Gambling for Local Authorities, Licensing, Planning and Regeneration".

"[153] It was later reported by Private Eye that the Bar Standards Board was investigating a complaint that she had made a "dishonest statement out of self-interest to promote her career".