Suella Braverman has been accused of putting lives at risk after claiming the south coast was facing an “invasion” by migrants, the day after a firebomb attack in Dover.
Refugee charities described the embattled home secretary’s comments as “heinous” and “dehumanising”, while Labour accused her of “highly irresponsible” language that did not take public safety seriously.
The row erupted as prime minister Rishi Sunak came under growing pressure over his decision to reappoint Ms Braverman to the role last week, just days after she resigned for breaking the ministerial code.
Hours before her “invasion” remark, she faced further questions over her resignation after she was forced to admit she sent official documents to her personal email account six times, in a clear breach of the rules.
Ms Braverman, who was also at the centre of controversy earlier this month when she said it was her “dream” to send a planeload of migrants to Rwanda, was defending her handling of the Kent asylum centre crisis in the Commons.
She told MPs: “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.
“Some 40,000 people have arrived on the south coast this year alone. Many of them facilitated by criminal gangs, some of them actual members of criminal gangs.
"So let’s stop pretending that they are all refugees in distress. The whole country knows that is not true.”
She also admitted the asylum system “is broken.”
“We need to be straight with the public. 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.”
The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants called her comments “heinous” and added: “She's putting lives at risk.”
Refugee Action said that the day after a petrol bomb attack on innocent people “this rhetoric puts so many people at risk” including refugees, Home Office staff, charity staff and volunteers.
Clare Moseley, from refugee charity Care4Calais, said: “For Suella Braverman to use language like ‘invasion’, to describe refugees - people who are themselves escaping conflict - is offensive. They know what being invaded feels like. We are lucky that most of us do not."
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: “For a home secretary to use deliberately inflammatory language the day after a petrol bomb attack on an initial processing centre is highly irresponsible. This is yet more evidence that Suella Braverman does not take public safety or national security seriously.”
There are thought to be more than 4,000 people at the Manston site near Ramsgate, instead of the intended maximum of 1,600. As conditions deteriorated one 16-year-old said he was forced to sleep on leftover food boxes, while another said he was shouted at for asking for something to eat.
Earlier, the Conservative MP Roger Gale alleged that the conditions at Manston had been “deliberately” caused by the Home Office, accusing his own government of “dog whistle politics”, while Caroline Nokes, a former Conservative immigration minister, warned the “chaos” at the centre would end in multiple legal claims against the government.
David Normington, a former senior civil servant at the Home Office, said Ms Braverman may have breached the ministerial code, for the second time in a month, if she deliberately decided not to book hotels to address overcrowding.
Ms Braverman was forced to deny she had “blocked” the use of hotels to ease the situation at the centre after her predecessor Priti Patel effectively blamed her for the crisis.
The home secretary told MPs that the use of 30 more hotels had been “agreed” since she took up her post. However, she had concerns about the scale of their use.
Several “four-star” establishments were being used to house migrants, she said, and on average the Home Office was spending £150 per person per night, and a total of £6.8m a day, to accommodate people in hotels. “By my standards that is quite a nice hotel,” she added.
She also agreed with suggestions from Conservative MP Lee Anderson that some migrants can "get on a dinghy and go straight back to France" if they believe the accommodation in the UK is not good enough.
Ms Patel suggested the problem had occurred under her successor’s watch, specifically highlighting the use of hotel rooms. “There was never any overcrowding when she was there. What would happen was, if it got to the point where people were getting worried about conditions, we would sign off on more hotels,” a source close to Ms Patel said.
The former home secretary considered it “the right thing to do”, the source told the PA news agency.
Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson, Alistair Carmichael said the “scandal-ridden” home secretary “has no credibility left”.
“These refugees are not an invasion, they are people who want to build a life for themselves and their families, contribute to our society and our economy, and support themselves instead of relying on handouts.”
SNP MP Anne McLaughlin said she was “disgusted ... to hear a home secretary deliberately use inflammatory language about vulnerable asylum seekers” and that the remarks were “shameful”.
Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside, said: “One day after petrol bombs were thrown at the Dover immigration centre, Suella Braverman talks of ‘an invasion on the south coast’.
“That is why racists and extremists feel emboldened to attack vulnerable asylum seekers. The government needs to stop inflaming hate.”
