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Rishi Sunak is under growing pressure to sack Suella Braverman after she ignored Downing Street advice and published an explosive article accusing the Metropolitan police of political bias.

Amid claims that the prime minister is too weak to remove the home secretary, ministers joined with senior police officers in accusing Braverman of stoking “hatred and division” before a pro-Palestinian march on Saturday.

Five opposition parties publicly called for her removal from office on Thursday after Downing Street said the Times article – in which Braverman claimed that unnamed police officers were guilty of “double standards” and “played favourites when it comes to demonstrators” – had not been signed off.

Inquiries have been launched into the article after changes demanded by No 10 officials before publication did not appear. A Downing Street spokesperson said the prime minister retained confidence in the home secretary.

Politicians from Northern Ireland claimed the article had damaged the likelihood of a return to a functioning democracy in Stormont, after Braverman described recent protests in central London as an “assertion of primacy by certain groups – particularly Islamists – of the kind we are more used to seeing in Northern Ireland”.