UK home secretary comes under fire after describing Channel crossings as ‘invasion’

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) – British home secretary’s description of people’s crossing the English Channel as “invasion” has caused controversy since Monday.

A number of British MPs have reacted to comments made by Suella Braverman at the House of Commons.

The embattled home secretary was forced to resign by former Prime Minister Liz Truss over breach of ministerial code by sharing government documents via her personal email account but reappointed days after by Rishi Sunak.

Braverman’s choice of words for migrants have come under fire as many politicians reacted to the likening of Channel crossings to an “invasion.”

“Disgusted to hear Suella Braverman say there’s an invasion on our southern coast, just a day after a migrant detention centre was fire-bombed,” Labour MP Zarah Sultana tweeted.

“Dear Suella, You refer to refugees as an invasion, yet vote for bombing the countries they come from,” Claudia Webbe, an independent MP, wrote on Twitter.

Also reacting to Braverman, Anne Mclaughlin, a Scotish National Party MP, said she was “disgusted.”

“Disgusted, absolutely disgusted to hear a Home Secretary deliberately use inflammatory language about vulnerable asylum seekers – ‘scourge,’ ‘invasion’,” she wrote also on Twitter.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan was another politician to react.

“This language is utterly grotesque, divisive and inflammatory. It’s the sort of rhetoric used by the far-right,” he wrote on Twitter.

- ‘Invasion’

Braverman’s remarks came on Monday as she made a statement on the petrol bomb attack on a Home Office center where asylum seekers are housed as their claims are processed in Dover.

The incident took place on Sunday, which left two people with minor injuries and the attacker was later found dead, Braverman told the lawmakers.

She later on gave an outlook on the latest situation on Channel crossings.

“Let’s be clear about what is really going on here: the British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not,” she said.

Braverman added: “Let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress. The whole country knows that is not true … We need to be straight with the public. The system is broken. Illegal migration is out of control and too many people are interested in playing political parlour games, covering up the truth, than solving the problem.”

On Tuesday morning, Immigration Minister Robert Jenrick defended Braverman’s remarks.

Speaking to Sky News, he said Braverman describing people’s crossing the Channel as an “invasion" was a way to show the magnitute of the issue.

Jenrick said that saying “invasion” was “a way of describing the sheer scale of the challenge, and that’s what Suella Braverman was trying to express.”

He also said Braverman was speaking for the people who live on the south coast.

The immigration minister, however, said he would “never demonise people coming to this country in pursuit of a better life.”