Home Secretary Suella Braveman’s speech came under fire by a BBC Question Time panellist – who claimed leaving the ECHR was the “real threat” and not migration.
The BBC One Question Time debate centred around Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s Conservative Party conference speech.
In the speech Ms Braverman spoke about a “hurricane” of migration being on the horizon, which went down well with the party faithful but drew criticism from others.
In the speech – which was given a standing ovation – she said: “The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming.”
But on Question Time tonight audience member Sarah Roberts said: “In 1968 the MP for Wolverhampton South West [Enoch Powell] was ostracised by his party for his views on immigration.
“Should Suella Braveman receive the same treatment?”
The audience member was referring to Powell’s River of Blood speech in which he said: “As I look ahead I am filled with foreboding” about mass immigration.
Ms Braveman hinted the Government is willing to leave the European Convention on Human Rights to end the migrant crisis if Rwanda flights continue to be blocked.
More than 25,000 people have crossed the Channel in 533 boats this year, heaping huge pressure on the broken asylum system.
Panellist Emma Dabiri, a writer, said: “I don’t see how you couldn’t make the comparison.
“The use of the word hurricane is not incidental.”
She added: “And I really, really feel that we need to be like extremely vigilant because people are manipulated into thinking that migrants pose a threat when really the real threat is posed by us leaving the European Court of Human Rights which they’re using, um like the small boats policy, the fact that that’s kind of deemed illegal, the Government is using that to say they they might leave the European Court of Human Rights.
“By starting you know with targeting the most vulnerable in society and dehumanising them what we would be allowing to happen would be for the Government to actually erode human rights in ways that would mean that we were all increasingly vulnerable and left without protection.”
But Conservative North West Durham MP Richard Holden, and a Government Transport Minister, disagreed and said the word hurricane merely demonstrated the scale of the issue – although conceded he wouldn’t have used the word.
He said: “There’s no comparison between what Enoch Powell said and what Suella Braveman said.”
He added: “It’s the language she’s chosen to use in this context.
“It basically highlights as Tony said the fact that there are so many people around the world who are wanting to move for all sorts of reasons.
“The West cannot take those numbers of people. It’s highlighting the size of the problem.”
