The News Caravan

Tag: Bravermans

  • Braverman’s comments on boat arrivals’ values rejected by fellow Tories

    Braverman’s comments on boat arrivals’ values rejected by fellow Tories

    [ad_1]

    Suella Braverman is facing further criticism from Conservative colleagues including the “red wall” MP Jonathan Gullis over claims that people crossing the Channel have values at odds with the UK’s.

    It comes as the home secretary’s allegations that Albanian people arriving in the UK by small boats are exploiting modern slavery laws have been challenged in an analysis seen by the Guardian.

    Asked about the home secretary’s comments on the values of people crossing on small boats, the Stoke MP said they made him feel “uncomfortable”.

    Gullis, who previously suggested it would be “acceptable” to house migrants in tents, told LBC: “I don’t feel comfortable with the mentioning of the values. I don’t think that was appropriate, nor was it right.”

    Braverman on Wednesday said people who come to the UK across the Channel in small boats “possess values which are at odds with our country” and there were “heightened levels of criminality”. She told the Guardian her claims were based on briefings from unnamed senior police officers, not data.

    The Conservative peer Sayeeda Warsi said Braverman should be replaced and the government needed a home secretary who would re-establish “evidence-based policies”.

    “Part of what, unfortunately, the home secretary has a tendency to do is to make sweeping statements based upon nothing,” Lady Warsi told Channel 4. “I think she has to go back to having a sense of proportionality, a commitment to facts, making policy based upon evidence.”

    Braverman’s allegations that many Albanians claiming to be victims of modern slavery were lying have been challenged by the Migration Observatory at Oxford University (OMO).

    It found that just 12% of Albanians who came across the Channel in 2022 were referred to the national referral mechanism (NRM), which is designed to provide victims with safety and support.

    Of the Albanians whose cases were assessed, 90% were found by the Home Office to have “reasonable grounds” for claiming to be victims of modern slavery, the body has discovered.

    Braverman told Conservative party members in October: “Today, the largest group of small boats migrants are from Albania, a safe country. Many of them claim to be trafficked as modern slaves. The truth is that many of them are not modern slaves and their claims of being trafficked are lies.”

    The OMO analysis found that of the roughly 12,000 Albanians who arrived via small boats in 2022, 1,467 (12%) were referred to the NRM by the end of 2022. Among all small boat arrivals in 2022, 7% were referred to the NRM.

    skip past newsletter promotion

    “Of the 1,467 Albanians who arrived via small boat and were referred to the NRM in 2022, 1,382 (94%) had received by 2023 a decision from the Home Office on whether there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to believe the individual is a victim of modern slavery. Of these, the Home Office determined that in 90% (1,239) of cases there were reasonable grounds to believe these individuals were modern slavery victims,” the analysis said.

    The figures also contrast with Rishi Sunak’s claims in December that “one of the reasons we struggle to remove [Albanian] people is because they unfairly exploit our modern slavery system”.

    The government’s asylum law, the illegal migration bill, was voted through the House of Commons on Wednesday. The former prime minister Theresa May led criticism of the bill for abandoning people who have been trafficked or forced into slavery.

    Labour has attacked Braverman for failing to provide hard evidence for incendiary comments about refugees. Stephen Kinnock, the shadow immigration minister, said: “The Conservative government is consistently misrepresenting asylum statistics and giving the public a misleading view of the reality of what we face in fixing the broken asylum system.”

    A Home Office spokesperson said the UK government valued the Albanian community in the UK and welcomed those who come to the UK legally.

    “Modern slavery remains a barbaric crime which the government is committed to stamping out and we continue to support thousands of genuine victims every year, but we will not allow people to abuse our laws,” the spokesperson said. “The illegal migration bill will change the law so that if someone is identified as a potential victim of modern slavery or human trafficking, we will ensure they are safely returned home or to another safe country.”

    [ad_2]
    #Bravermans #comments #boat #arrivals #values #rejected #fellow #Tories
    ( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

  • ‘Grooming gangs’ row: British Pakistani group writes to Sunak over Braverman’s remarks

    ‘Grooming gangs’ row: British Pakistani group writes to Sunak over Braverman’s remarks

    [ad_1]

    London: A British Pakistani diaspora group has written an open letter to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, urging him to clarify the remarks of his Home Secretary Suella Braverman which, they say, stigmatised their community in relation to grooming gangs behind child sexual exploitation.

    The British Pakistani Foundation (BPF), which claims to represent 18,000 Pakistani diaspora members, called on Sunak to ask his Cabinet minister to withdraw her “irresponsible words” as it would be perceived as normalising bigotry against the community.

    Similar letters have also been issued by other Pakistani diaspora groups, all calling for the Indian-origin Cabinet minister’s comments to be withdrawn.

    MS Education Academy

    In a series of television interviews earlier this month ahead of the launch of a new Grooming Gangs Taskforce, Braverman said that the perpetrators of such crimes are “groups of men, almost all British Pakistani”.

    “We are writing to you to share our deep concern and disappointment at the Home Secretary’s recent comments and for you not speaking out against them,” reads the open letter issued on Tuesday.

    These comments singled out only the involvement of British Pakistani males in so-called grooming gangs’ and holding cultural values totally at odds with British values’, it said.

    “Words have consequences by stigmatising an entire community, and making it the face’ of child sexual exploitation, the Home Secretary’s remarks will detract attention from perpetrators who don’t meet her stereotypes, harming the very victims the Home Secretary ostensibly set out to protect but also further perpetrating violence against minorities,” it reads.

    The letter references a report commissioned by the UK Home Office in 2020, entitled The characteristics of group-based child sexual exploitation in the community’, which had concluded that despite some high-profile cases, links between ethnicity and this form of offending cannot be proven.

    It also references the most recent conviction of 21 men and women of “white British ethnicity”, who were last week found guilty of sexually abusing young children in Walsall in the West Midlands region of England over a decade.

    “The divisive and dangerous way in which the Home Secretary is seeking to portray all British Pakistani males and insinuating that the community is complicit in their actions is reprehensible,” the BPF open letter notes.

    “We, therefore, ask you to immediately clarify the Home Secretary’s claims and ask her to withdraw her remarks. We also ask for your prompt engagement with the British Pakistani community, and others, on this issue to ensure that the Home Secretary’s irresponsible words, and a government led by you, are not seen as encouraging and normalising bigotry targeted at British Pakistanis,” it concludes.

    Earlier this month, Sunak had condemned the political correctness which prevented action against “vile” criminals as he unveiled his new taskforce to go after grooming gangs.

    “The safety of women and girls is paramount. For too long, political correctness has stopped us from weeding out vile criminals who prey on children and young women. We will stop at nothing to stamp out these dangerous gangs,” he said at the time.

    Led by the police and supported by the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA), Downing Street says that data analysts will work alongside the new Grooming Gangs Taskforce using cutting edge data and intelligence to identify the types of criminals who carry out these offences, including police recorded ethnicity data.

    [ad_2]
    #Grooming #gangs #row #British #Pakistani #group #writes #Sunak #Bravermans #remarks

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

  • UK minister Suella Braverman’s migration policy branded ‘racist’

    UK minister Suella Braverman’s migration policy branded ‘racist’

    [ad_1]

    London: Britain’s Indian-origin Home Secretary Suella Braverman is facing increasing pressure over the government’s new plans to clamp down on illegal migration, with a former Home Office adviser branding the policy as “racist” and a former minister raising serious concerns in Parliament.

    Nimco Ali, a one-time campaigner for the governing Conservative Party who left her job as a government adviser in December last year, told the Guardian’ that Goan-origin Braverman was “the wrong person not just for the Conservative party but for the country” as she makes the Tories seem “cruel and heartless”.

    The child refugee from Somaliland was scathing in her criticism of the government’s failure to widen migration routes open to Ukrainians over the ongoing Russian conflict.

    “As a former refugee of colour, if we can provide generous help to Ukrainians escaping war then I think we need to look at ensuring that we also provide routes to anyone escaping conflicts,” Ali told the newspaper.

    “If we can find room for a white child but not a black child, who are coming here in similar circumstances, it is racist. It is really painful if we believe that people can seek refuge if they come from Europe but not elsewhere. If we can provide safe and legal routes for Ukrainians, we should do it for other people as well,” she said.

    Ali, who is supportive of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, warned that he would not win the next general election with Braverman as his Home Secretary as he is in danger of losing younger and floating voters.

    “Suella Braverman wants the government to look tough but it will instead make us look cruel and heartless, which I don’t think the PM is. I have a problem with her language. I believe that blaming lefty lawyers when they are challenging the law is dangerous. When she spoke about her dream of seeing a plane take off to Rwanda, it lacked compassion and understanding,” said Ali, with reference to the government’s migration pact with the African nation to house illegal migrants.

    Her criticism came as former Tory home secretary Theresa May raised several concerns in the House of Commons about the proposed new Illegal Migration Bill, which has been tabled in Parliament to tackle the issue of thousands of migrants arriving on UK shores illegally via small boats.

    “As it currently stands, we are shutting the door to victims who are being trafficked into (modern) slavery (in) the UK,” said May.

    “Whenever you close a route for migrants the migrants and the people smugglers find another way. Anybody who thinks that this bill will deal with the issue of illegal migration once and for all is wrong,” she said.

    During a debate in the Commons on Monday, Braverman referred to her predecessor in office, Indian-origin former home secretary Priti Patel, to claim all ethnic minority Home Office ministers have been subjected to “grotesque slurs” for simple truths about the impact of unlimited and illegal migration.

    “Accusations that this government’s policies, which are backed by the majority of the British people, are bigoted, xenophobic or a dog whistle to racists are irresponsible and frankly beneath the dignity of this place. Politicians of all stripes should know better, and they should choose their words carefully,” said Braverman.

    “Those who cast their criticism of the Bill in moral terms ignore certain truths. First, they ignore that we have a moral duty to stop the boats. People are dying in the channel. They are taking journeys that are unsafe, unnecessary and unlawful,” she said.

    The debate over the new bill has also spilled over outside the political arena, as England football legend and BBC personality Gary Lineker likened the policies to 1930s Nazi Germany in a tweet. It unleashed days of disruption for the taxpayer-funded broadcaster’s sports coverage and has forced the BBC to review its social media policy in order to resolve the crisis.

    [ad_2]
    #minister #Suella #Bravermans #migration #policy #branded #racist

    ( With inputs from www.siasat.com )