Current:Home > InvestUK Home Secretary Suella Braverman wows some Conservatives and alarms others with hardline stance -InvestPioneer
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman wows some Conservatives and alarms others with hardline stance
View
Date:2025-04-16 21:13:55
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman railed against unauthorized migrants, human-rights laws and “woke” critics of her hardline policies Tuesday as she tried to secure her place as the flag-bearer of the Conservative Party’s law-and-order right wing.
In her keynote speech to the governing party’s annual conference, Braverman called migration a “hurricane” that would bring “millions more immigrants to these shores, uncontrolled and unmanageable.”
She said British governments had been “far too squeamish about being smeared as racist to properly bring order to the chaos.” But the Conservatives, she said, would give Britain “strong borders.”
Braverman hailed the government’s moves to make it harder for migrants to seek asylum in Britain, including a law that requires anyone arriving in small boats across the English Channel to be detained and then deported permanently to their home nation or third countries.
Despite being passed by Parliament earlier this year, the law has not yet taken effect. The only third country that has agreed to take migrants from Britain is Rwanda, and no one has yet been sent there as that plan is being challenged in the U.K. courts.
Braverman’s speech to party activists had the feel of an election rally. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives are lagging behind Labour in opinion polls with an election due by the end of 2024. Many members attending the four-day conference that ends Wednesday in Manchester are looking ahead to a leadership contest that would likely follow a defeat.
Braverman, a Cambridge-educated lawyer, is unofficially campaigning for the support of the party’s populist right wing by advocating ever-tougher curbs on migration and a war on human rights protections and liberal social values. She quipped that the Human Rights Act should be called the “Criminal Rights Act,” said trans women should not be allowed on single-sex female hospital wards and vowed to remove “gender ideology, white privilege, anti-British history” from education and cultural institutions.
Braverman makes some Conservatives worry the party is regaining its image as “the nasty party,” as former Prime Minister Theresa May once called it. In recent years the party has worked to shed its image as a bastion of jingoistic “Little Englanders” and to attract a more diverse membership. Sunak is Britain’s first prime minister of color, Braverman also has Indian roots, and several other high-profile Cabinet members also have immigrant parents or grandparents.
Braverman said her critics had “tried to make me into a hate figure, because I tell the truth -- the blunt unvarnished truth about what is happening in our country.”
It’s an open question whether Braverman’s tough views will work on the party, or the country.
Delegates greeted her speech with loud applause, but one Conservative politician in the room was led out by security after challenging Braverman’s views on gender.
Andrew Boff, a member of the London Assembly, said Braverman has been talking “trash” about gender and “making our Conservative Party look transphobic and homophobic.”
“This home secretary was basically vilifying gay people and trans people by this attack on LGBT ideology, or gender ideology,” he said. “It is fictitious, it is ridiculous.”
veryGood! (7239)
Related
- House passes bill to add 66 new federal judgeships, but prospects murky after Biden veto threat
- Cuomo to testify before House committee that accused him of COVID-19 cover up
- Revisiting Taylor Swift and Kanye West's MTV VMAs Feud 15 Years Later
- Chipotle uses memes for inspiration in first-ever costume line with Spirit Halloween
- Newly elected West Virginia lawmaker arrested and accused of making terroristic threats
- Cuomo to testify before House committee that accused him of COVID-19 cover up
- Watch Louisiana tower turn into dust as city demolishes building ravaged by hurricanes
- Aaron Rodgers documentary set to stream on Netflix in December
- Macy's says employee who allegedly hid $150 million in expenses had no major 'impact'
- Beyoncé Offers Rare Glimpse Into Family Life With Her and Jay-Z’s 3 Kids
Ranking
- IRS recovers $4.7 billion in back taxes and braces for cuts with Trump and GOP in power
- DNC meets Olympics: Ella Emhoff, Mindy Kaling, Suni Lee sit front row at Tory Burch NYFW show
- Chiefs fan wins $1.6M on Vegas poker game after Kansas City beat Baltimore
- Black Eyed Peas to debut AI member inspired by 'empress' Taylor Swift at Vegas residency
- US wholesale inflation accelerated in November in sign that some price pressures remain elevated
- Why Selena Gomez Didn’t Want to Be Treated Like Herself on Emilia Perez Movie Set
- Jennifer Coolidge Shares How She Honestly Embraces Aging
- New Hampshire primary voters to pick candidates for short but intense general election campaigns
Recommendation
EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
Kyle Larson expected to return to Indianapolis 500 for another shot at ‘The Double’ in 2025
Huddle Up to Learn How Olivia Culpo and Christian McCaffrey Became Supportive Teammates
Powerball winning numbers for September 9: Jackpot rises to $121 million
Rams vs. 49ers highlights: LA wins rainy defensive struggle in key divisional game
Don Lemon, with a new book on faith, examines religion in politics: 'It's disturbing'
Shaq calls Caitlin Clark the 'real deal,' dismisses Barkley comments about pettiness
Elon Musk says human could reach Mars in 4 years after uncrewed SpaceX Starship trips