Braverman sacked from cabinet after she was blamed for encouraging tensions and racial hate over Armistice Day protests
Monday, November 13, 2023
Suella Braverman, who was sacked as UK Home Secretary, has often been in the headlines for her controversial statements, particularly against refugees and ethnic minorities.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday sacked Braverman in a stunning cabinet reshuffle after she was accused of inciting tensions and racial hatred over Armistice Day protests and claims London police favored left-wing pro-Palestinian protesters.
But the now-ousted security czar is no stranger to controversy during her time in office.
Braverman resigned from the same job while Liz Truss was prime minister before being brought back into government by Rishi Sunak a week later, the BBC reports.
Braverman's key controversial statements
In April this year, the former UK Home Secretary said British-Pakistani men "hold cultural values contrary to British values".
In an interview with Sky News, Braverman also claimed that British-Pakistani men worked in child abuse rings or networks that targeted "vulnerable white English girls".
A UK Home Office report on gang-based child sexual abuse published in 2020 pointed out that research into the ethnicity of perpetrators is limited and tends to rely on poor-quality data.
But he pointed to studies that show whites are more likely to be perpetrators than Asians or blacks.
Braverman was alerted to the report's findings during the interview, but went on to say that British Pakistani men "see women in a demeaning and illegitimate way and promote an outdated and frankly disgusting approach to the way they behave".
Pakistan's Foreign Office and the Pakistani diaspora in the UK criticized her "discriminatory and xenophobic" comments.
Foreign Office spokeswoman Mumtaz Zahra Baloch condemned Braverman's remarks, which she said painted "a very misleading picture of an intention to target and treat British Pakistanis differently".
Mocking refugees
"I'd love to be on the front page of the Telegraph with a plane taking off for Rwanda, that's my dream, that's my obsession."
It was made on the sidelines of last year's Conservative Party conference, shortly after Liz Truss was appointed Home Secretary. According to the BBC, she was referring to the government's asylum plan to take asylum seekers who have crossed the English Channel to the UK on a one-way ticket to Rwanda, where they could apply for asylum instead.
Braverman has faced criticism from refugee groups and others for downplaying the plight of people in need.
Confidential email
One of Braverman's first tasks as home secretary was to push through parliament a plan to curb the right to protest to stop highly disruptive stunts by groups including Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil - such as occupying motorways.
She accused the opposition of being in league with eco-protesters because the previous version of the measure did not get enough support.
“I'm afraid it's Labour, the Lib Dems, the Coalition of Chaos, the Guardian-reading wokerats, the tofu-eating wokerats and dare I say the anti-growth coalition that we have to thank for the disruption that we are. seen on our roads today."
"I made a mistake, I accept responsibility: I resign"
October 19, 2022: The very next day, Braverman sensationally quit as Secretary of the Interior after admitting a grave mistake.
She sent a confidential and sensitive government email to her own Gmail account and then forwarded it to her confidante and Tory backbencher John Hayes.
However, the real story here was the timing. The incident happened some time ago - and her resignation came when Liz Truss was on the brink and her government was in turmoil.
In her resignation letter, Braverman accused the incumbent prime minister of breaking key promises. The following day, Liz Truss resigned as Prime Minister. Less than a week later, Ms Braverman's serious ministerial mistake was forgiven by new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - and she was back in the same job.
'swarms'
“The British people deserve to know which side is serious about stopping the invasion on our south coast.
For several months, political tensions have been rising over small boat crossings - and in late October 2022, a man attacked the government's migrant arrivals center in Dover Docks. In addition, independent inspectors warned that conditions in the migrant reception camp were "deplorable".
Braverman took the fight to the House of Commons, but a few days later she was confronted in her constituency by 83-year-old Holocaust survivor Joan Salter.
"When I hear you use anti-refugee words like 'swarms' and 'invasion,'" she said, "I am reminded of the language used to dehumanize and justify the murder of my family and millions of others."
