In a US speech urging a change of the asylum system, Suella Braverman warns that unchecked immigration poses a “existential” threat to the West and that the UK is already suffering the effects of people who have failed to “integrate.”Multicultural Britain’s ‘dream’ is over.
Suella Braverman criticized the “absurd” international refugee standards and warned that unchecked immigration poses a “existential threat” to the West today.
The Home Secretary highlighted to enormous inflows being witnessed across Europe and the US in a bold speech delivered in Washington, DC, which was perceived as a campaign to become the next Tory leader.
She emphasized the Channel boats dilemma in her warning that nations would ‘not endure’ if they couldn’t find a means to manage their borders.
She also gave a sharp rebuke to those who label those concerned about immigration as “idiots or bigots,” claiming that multiculturalism’s “failure” was clear from the streets of Paris, Brussels, and Leicester. She said that immigrants could no longer enter the UK with the intention of ‘living parallel lives’ rather than assimilating.
The comment came as Ms. Braverman renewed her criticism of the European Convention on Human Rights and urged for an update to the UN Refugee Convention to assist resolve the Channel situation.
The system, she claimed, is “unsustainable” and “creates huge incentives for illegal migration.”
Ms. Braverman suggested amending the 1951 UN treaty to strengthen the bar for asylum applications, arguing that being trafficked as a sex slave is far different from hiring a gang to carry you across the Channel.
The Home Secretary, taking aim at proponents of multiculturalism, argued that although she backed immigration as the child of immigrants herself, unchecked migration posed a threat to nationhood and national security because of a lack of integration.
In the previous 25 years, she claimed, migration to the UK had been “too much, too quick,” with “too little thought given to integration and the impact on social cohesion.”
Over the past few decades, she claimed, “unchecked immigration, insufficient integration, and a misguided dogma of multiculturalism have proven to be a toxic combination for Europe.”
“Multiculturalism does not require the immigrant to integrate.” It failed because it permitted individuals to enter our society and lead parallel lives there. They might not be of the society, but they might be in it.
And in extreme circumstances, they might lead lives that try to undermine the security and stability of society.
“The effects of that failure are still being felt today. It is being acted out on the streets of European towns. From Leicester to Paris, Brussels, and Malmo.
“If cultural change is too rapid and too large, then what was already there is diluted — eventually it will disappear,” Mr. Braverman continued.
When questioned about how her opinions align with her background as the daughter of immigrants from Kenya and Mauritius, the Home Secretary responded: “What you’re suggesting is that because I’m the child of immigrants, I have to adopt a position that is pro-migration and pro the status quo, and I totally and fundamentally refute that.”
“I believe that is completely at odds with the challenge we are currently experiencing, which is the enormous number of people entering our country without authorization. They are abusing our immigration system by feigning to be refugees or to be escaping persecution in order to enter the nation illegally.
That’s not how we should be having this discourse, in my opinion. With the British people, we must be open and truthful about the problems we face and the solutions we propose. I’m not off the table from this discussion just because of my immigrant background.
“As Home Secretary, it is my responsibility to be open and honest with the British people about the shortcomings of the international system.” We need to go to work on finding a just and lasting solution.
As Ms. Braverman noted, prospective refugees no longer need to demonstrate that they are subject to “persecution,” merely that they are the victims of “discrimination.”
She called the UN convention “an incredible achievement for its time,” but she also emphasized its contribution to the problem that has seen almost 110,000 migrants use dinghies to traverse the English Channel in search of safety in Britain since 2018.
She will say, “More than 70 years later, we now live in a completely different time.”
According to research done by Nick Timothy and Karl Williams for the Centre for Policy Studies, it now grants at least 780 million people the theoretical right to move to another country.
Politicians and thought leaders must thus consider whether the Refugee Convention and the way it has been applied by our courts are appropriate in the present day. Or whether reforms are required.
No one entering the UK by water from France is fleeing urgent threat, Ms. Braverman, who is traveling with a TV team, said in her address.
The great majority have traveled through various safe nations and, in some cases, have lived there for a long time. There is a case to be made that they shouldn’t be recognized as refugees when evaluating the legality of their onward migration in this sense.
Ms. Braverman acknowledged that updating the European and UN agreements on refugee rights would be challenging given the challenging challenge of persuading member states to agree on revisions.
She said that there was a “more cynical” explanation as well, claiming that many were afraid of being labeled as racist or illiberal.
“The current situation, where people can travel through several safe countries and even stay there for years while they choose their preferred destination to claim asylum, is absurd and unsustainable,” she will add.
The West, according to Mrs. Braverman, has “created a system of almost infinite supply, incentivizing millions of people to try their luck, fully aware that we have no capacity to meet more than a fraction of demand.”
She also fired a volley at judges and immigration attorneys.
When asked after the speech if the current interpretation of the ECHR was ‘compatible’ with the need to safeguard and manage UK borders, Ms. Braverman responded, ‘My personal views on the ECHR have been chronicled and they’re very clear, but what I think is a legitimate question for all of us in the UK to be asking is whether its operation and its interpretation by the courts is compatible with our pressing need to manage our borders and national sovereignty.’
She also fired a volley at judges and immigration attorneys.
When asked after the speech if the current interpretation of the ECHR was ‘compatible’ with the need to safeguard and manage UK borders, Ms. Braverman responded, ‘My personal views on the ECHR have been chronicled and they’re very clear, but what I think is a legitimate question for all of us in the UK to be asking is whether its operation and its interpretation by the courts is compatible with our pressing need to manage our borders and national sovereignty.’
We want to operate within those parameters, and we are sure that we can accomplish that, but I do believe that real concerns need to be raised about the rather incongruous character of those frameworks, she continued.
Many immigration attorneys and advocates disagree with Mrs. Braverman’s critiques of the UN convention and refer to Britain’s pivotal role in developing it following the atrocities of World War II.
Ms Braverman pointed out that the convention defines refugees as those with a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion’.
‘However, as case law has developed, what we have seen in practice is an interpretive shift away from persecution, in favour of something more akin to a definition of discrimination,’ she will say.
‘And a similar shift away from a ‘well-founded fear’ towards a ‘credible’ or ‘plausible fear’.
‘The practical consequence of which has been to expand the number of those who may qualify for asylum, and to lower the threshold for doing so.’
‘Let me be clear, there are enormous swaths of the world where it is really difficult to be homosexual or a woman,’ she added.
‘It is right that we provide asylum where people are being persecuted.
‘However, we will be unable to sustain an asylum system if merely being homosexual or a woman and frightened of prejudice in your place of origin is enough to qualify for protection.
Mrs. Braverman also mentioned ‘asylum shopping,’ in which migrants go through many secure nations before arriving in their destination country.
According to her, the convention “makes clear” that it is designed to apply to those “coming directly from a territory where their life was threatened,” and that they must demonstrate “good cause” for entering a nation unlawfully in order to claim asylum.
‘The UK, like many countries, including the United States, interprets this to indicate that refugees should seek safety and asylum in the first safe nation they reach,’ she will say. ‘NGOs and others, including the UN Refugee Agency, disagree.
‘Seeking refuge and seeking better economic opportunities are not synonymous.
‘Seeking asylum in the first secure country you reach or searching for your ideal destination are not the same thing. Being trafficked, which is being carried against your will, maybe to be sold into sex slavery, is not the same as being smuggled, which means requesting someone to sneak you into a nation.
‘The extent to which the global asylum framework allows for the merging of these categories creates significant incentives for illegal migration. This legal framework is based on the 1951 United Nations Refugee Convention.’
Ms Braverman observed that the treaty bestowed protection on two million Europeans when it was signed, but a recent analysis by the Centre for Policy Studies think-tank determined that it now “confers the notional right to move to another country upon at least 780 million people.”
Any revision of the agreement would be a lengthy process that would require significant international backing.
A paper issued last year by the Centre for Policy Studies, co-authored by former Theresa May advisor Nick Timothy, advised that the UK “work with international partners on updating the antiquated 1951 Refugee Convention.”
However, Enver Solomon, CEO of the Refugee Council, stated that the ideals of the convention are ‘just as vital now as they have ever been’.
‘We cannot abandon them: we must remain solid in our commitment to all individuals escaping persecution and the international structures that were established to protect them,’ he added.
Police minister Chris Philp agreed with Ms Braverman this morning, telling Times Radio that the convention “needs to be looked at on an international basis.”
He said that the administration has “seen people shopping around between different countries to choose where to claim asylum.”
‘That’s not how the UN Refugee Convention was initially created; it’s not designed to allow individuals to circulate around Europe for a number of years before selecting where to seek asylum and undertaking risky and illegal travels to do so,’ he added.
‘I’m doing it,’ he said.
Mr Philp stated that some people fraudulently claim to be persecuted, noting that “some people claim to be gay when they aren’t.”
‘When I was immigration minister, I came across a lot of situations where people claimed to be homosexual, supplied images of themselves with a type of same-sex relationship, and it turned out on further examination that it was a sibling, not a same-sex partner at all,’ he continued.
