Suella Braverman has been accused of using “dog whistle language” after she claimed that 100 million refugees are coming to the UK.
The home secretary made her remarks as she unveiled the government’s plans to stop asylum seekers crossing the English Channel from France in small boats.
Under the Illegal Migrants Bill, anyone coming to the UK that way will be deported and banned from ever returning.
Unveiling the legislation in the House of Commons yesterday, Braverman said that under the present system, the 100 million people estimated to be displaced around the world would have the right to seek asylum in Britain.
“Let’s be clear - they are coming here,” she said.
She went even further in an article for the Daily Mail in which she said “billions” of refugees could attempt to come to the UK.
On Good Morning Britain today, she was taken to task over her comments by presenter Susanna Reid.
″You say there are 100 million people displaced around the world and likely billions more eager to come here in possible,” Reid said. “On what planet is that likely and how is that not inflammatory language.”
Doubling down, Braverman said the 100 million figure was a United Nations estimate of people fleeing conflict, persecution and climate change.
She said: “Many of them are heading to the United Kingdom. We saw over 45,000 people come here on small boats alone last year. This is an unsustainable problem that we’ve got and it’s now necessary for us to take steps to stop it.”
But Reid pointed out that only a quarter of the 100 million have even left their own country.
She said: “So even the 100 million figure doesn’t hold up, let alone the billions you have flagged in the Daily Mail this morning.”
On LBC last night, Iain Dale launched a furious attack on the home secretary.
Interviewing Tory MP Danny Kruger, he said: “Suella Braverman, in her statement earlier, said there are 100 million people that could qualify to come here. She said ‘let’s be clear - they are coming here’.
“You know as well as I do that 100 million people are not coming here. This is dog whistle language from an extremist home secretary, isn’t it?”
Gavin Barwell, a Tory peer who was Theresa May’s chief of staff when she was prime minister, said Braverman should be “utterly ashamed of herself for resorting to the language of extremists”.
Meanwhile, Braverman also insisted this morning that her migrant crackdown would not break international law, despite telling MPs and peers that it could.
In a letter seen by HuffPost UK, Braverman, who is a lawyer, admitted there was more than a 50 per cent chance that the Illegal Migrants Bill could breach the European Convention on Human Rights.