United Kingdom Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it is “not racist” for British people “to want to control our borders.”
In a speech given at the Conservative Party conference Tuesday, Braverman stressed that one of her core missions as Britain‘s top immigration and national security official is securing the nation’s borders. As part of that, Braverman stressed the need to institute migration policies that maintain the British economy and cultural identity. Furthermore, Braverman asserted that it is not bigoted to want to protect the integrity of the nation’s borders.
“I backed Brexit because I wanted Britain to have control over our migration and to cut overall numbers,” Braverman said. “Brexit was meant to give us a say on how we determine our own migration policy. We should use our newfound control to deliver the kind of migration that grows our economy.”
On the other hand, Braverman stressed that the country should train more blue-collar workers from within the British population, instead of leaning on low-skilled foreign laborers. “We need to end the abuse of the rules and we need to cut down on those numbers that aren’t meeting the needs of our economy,” she said. “And we mustn’t forget how to do things for ourselves. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t train up enough of our own [truck] drivers or butchers or fruit pickers. The way we build a high-skilled, high-wage economy is by encouraging business to invest in capital and domestic labor, not relying wholly on low-skilled foreign workers.”
Braverman then rejected leftist rhetoric that decries controlling immigration as racist. “It’s not racist for anyone, ethnic minority or otherwise, to want to control our borders,” she said. “It’s not bigoted to say that we have too many asylum seekers who are abusing the system. It’s not xenophobic to say mass and rapid migration places pressure on housing, public services and community relations. I reject the Left’s argument that it is hypocritical for someone from an ethnic minority to tell these truths.”
“My parents came here through legal and controlled migration,” she continued. “They spoke the language. They threw themselves into the community. They embraced British values. When they arrived, they signed up to be part of our shared project because the United Kingdom meant something distinct. Integration was part of the quid pro quo. Now that didn’t mean abandoning their heritage, but it did mean adopting British identity, an identity of which we should all be proud. This is the best place on Earth to come and live in, but I fear that we are losing sight of the core values and the culture that made it so. The unexamined drive towards multiculturalism as an end in itself combined with the corrosive aspects of identity politics has led us astray.”
WATCH:
“It’s not racist for anyone, ethnic minority or otherwise, to want to control our borders,” says Home Secretary Suella Braverman, “it’s not bigoted to say that we have too many asylum seekers who are abusing the system”https://t.co/d2b6Mcryax pic.twitter.com/GSX3hz5DV7
— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) October 4, 2022
Braverman announced a plan to help control immigration from France Tuesday, as the U.K. struggles with an increase in migration across the English channel. The plan would ban any migrants who enter the country illegally from across the English Channel from claiming asylum, Reuters reported. The U.K. is also forging ahead with plans to deport migrants to Rwanda, despite ongoing legal challenges, the Associated Press reported.