UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman under fire over migrant “invasion” remarks

London:

Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman is criticizing the opposition and refugee activists for classifying an increase in the number of refugees landing on the country’s shores seeking asylum as an “invasion” by migrants at the border.

The Indian-origin cabinet minister told parliament on Monday evening that illegal migration in the country is “out of control” and the asylum system is “broken”, with large numbers arriving via the English Channel in small boats impossible to provide. . Accommodation for all.

Her statement came after a violent incident over the weekend linked to a petrol bomb attack on one of the migration centers on England’s south coast.

“The British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping an invasion of our southern coast and which is not,” Braverman told the House of Commons.

“This year alone some 40,000 people have arrived on the South Coast. For many of them, that was aided by criminal gangs; some of them are actual members of criminal gangs, so let us stop pretending they are. All are refugees in distress. The whole country knows this is not true. It is only opposition members who pretend otherwise,” he said.

His junior minister in the Home Office, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick, was forced to defend the statement, saying his boss was right to be directly with the public about the “sheer scale” of illegal immigration.

When asked about the phrase, he told Sky News, “In a job like mine, you have to choose your words very carefully. And I would never demonstrate that to people who come to this country in search of a better life.” “

However, he added that describing people crossing the Channel as “invasions” was a way of showing the scale of the challenge “and that is what Suella Braverman was trying to convey”.

The opposition Labor Party accused the Home Secretary of using “highly inflammatory” language and the Scottish National Party (SNP) said such “incendiary language mocks”. [Prime Minister] The claims of the sage Sunak about the so-called compassionate conservatism”.

Labor’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Any home secretary who was serious about public safety or national security would not use excessively inflammatory language the day after the dreaded petrol bomb attack on Dover’s initial processing center.”

The UK Refugee Council also condemned the language used by Ms Braverman.

“It is appalling, wrong and dangerous to describe the grave and complex situation arising out of an asylum crisis as ‘invasion’. These are men, women and children fleeing war, persecution and conflict.”

The opposition is building pressure on the government after reports of overcrowding at the UK Border Force Processing Center in Manston, Kent, on England’s south coast.

The site is designed to hold only 1,000 people, who are only to stay for 48 hours before moving on, but there are currently about 4,000 migrants there. Hundreds more people were moved to the Manston facility over the weekend after a petrol bomb attack, which Ms Braverman told lawmakers is not being treated as a terrorist attack.

A report in The Times claimed that Braverman prevented asylum seekers from relocating to new hotels from Manston and ignored legal advice that the government was illegally detaining people.

“I confirm that I have never ignored legal advice… What I will say is this: I am not prepared to release premature migrants without a definite residency in the local community in Kent. For me, this is an unacceptable option, he said in reply to a question in Parliament.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is being challenged over his decision to appoint Ms Braverman as home secretary since he gave her the job last week, but he stood by her. He resigned from the same role in the cabinet of his predecessor, Liz Truss, after sending sensitive policy documents from his personal email, breaking the ministerial code.

She told lawmakers this week that she was “clear that I made a mistake in the decision … I took responsibility for it and I resigned”.

(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)