"Suella Braverman with her reference to “hurricanes” coming is as divisive & dangerous as Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” rhetoric of the 1960s.”
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been condemned for fanning the flames of division and hatred after delivering a speech on immigration where she claimed that a ‘hurricane’ of mass migration is coming to the UK.
In what was clearly a leadership pitch aimed at the Tory right, she also claimed that “Britain would go properly woke” under a Labour government, with people “chased out of their jobs for saying that a man can’t be a woman” and “scolded for rejecting that they are beneficiaries of institutional racism”.
She also claimed that there would be a surge of ‘millions’ of migrants around the world trying to come to the UK.
“The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming,” Braverman told delegates.
She added: “[The public] know another thing, that the future could bring millions more migrants to these shores, uncontrolled and unmanageable unless the government they elect next year acts decisively to stop that happening.”
Her speech prompted immediate outrage and condemnation, with Tory London Assembly member Andrew Boff kicked out of the conference after heckling Braverman – accusing her of “vilifying” the LGBT+ community.
Braverman also took aim at the Human Rights Act, telling delegates at the Tory party conference that the Human Rights Act should be renamed the “Criminal Rights Act”, and also slammed the wealthy elite with their “luxury beliefs”, adding: “Migrants won’t be taking their jobs – they’re more likely to be mowing their laws or cleaning their homes … they have no use for their British passport unless it’s taking to their second homes in Tuscany.”
Her comments have been widely condemned. The Runnymede Trust, Britain’s leading independent race equality think tank posted on X: “This is classic distraction politics: whip up dangerous narratives on race, migration, and LGBTQ+ issues as a tactic to divide and distract from disgraceful government failures.”
Labour MP John McDonnell posted on X: “As we moved on from the 1980s I hoped that we’d also moved on from the right wing racism that then stained our society. How naive I was. Suella Braverman with her reference to “hurricanes” coming is as divisive & dangerous as Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” rhetoric of the 1960s.”
Journalist Kevin Maguire called it a ‘racist filth speech’ during his appearance on Good Morning Britain earlier today. He said: “Britain is a better country than Suella Braverman thinks. To win an election she has to excite every knuckle scraping reactionary bigot, that’s what she’s going for, it is quite clear. Enoch Powell could’ve made that speech in 68, he got done in by his then leader Ted Heath, now you get praised for it. It is terrible she is dividing the country with bigotry.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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