"There is no place for hate on our streets, but there’s no place for hate in the Home Office either”.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has been accused of ‘peddling hate’ with calls for Rishi Sunak to sack her, during a heated exchange on BBC Question Time.
The comments were made by Labour’s Chris Bryant, after it emerged that an inflammatory article written by Braverman in the Times, in which she hit out at the police for being biased towards left-wing protesters and also said pro-Palestine demos were ‘hate marches’, had not been cleared by Downing Street.
Braverman has clashed with the Met this week over the force’s decision not to ban a pro-Palestine demo this weekend on Armistice Day. The organisers of the demonstration
say it will be “well away” from the Cenotaph – going from Hyde Park, around a mile from the war memorial in Whitehall, to the US embassy.
The Home Secretary has also been condemned recently for claiming that being homeless is a lifestyle choice.
Appearing on BBC Question Time, Bryant said there is “no place for hate on our streets, but there’s no place for hate in the Home Office either”.
He highlighted how Jewish children in the UK feel they’re unable to go to school with the star of David showing on their school uniform and added: “That is a very worrying place to be in. But I say this, it is absolutely right that there’s no place for hate on our streets, but there’s no place for hate in the Home Office either.
“I think when you’re home secretary, you have a very special responsibility not to undermine the police in doing their job properly and that’s effectively what she’s done.
“She’s not commenting on something that happened six months ago. She’s commenting on a disagreement that she’s had this week with the police and I think the police should be allowed to do their job properly.
“It’s a fundamental premise of our system that politicians don’t tell police officers who you can and who you can’t arrest. We write the laws and then the police implement the laws.”
Presenter Fiona Bruce asked Bryant for examples of who Braverman is pushing hatred towards, to which he replied: “I think she’s shown hatred for a series of different groups over the last few months.
“For instance, I think it was completely inappropriate of her to say that homelessness is a lifestyle choice.
“How can that be? Homeless people? I think she’s betraying a degree of hatred in that.”
He added Braverman should “go” but Rishi Sunak is “too weak to sack her”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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