Suella Braverman has set out her hardline vision for British Conservatism and railed against “experts and elites” amid claims of fresh government splits over immigration.
The home secretary issued a veiled warning to her party about infighting, after dire local election results which sparked calls for policy U-turns and another change in the leadership.
Rishi Sunak is battling Tory rebellions on several fronts, including the small boats bill, net immigration figures – expected to hit a record high – and the climbdown over a promise to repeal thousands of EU laws.
Dozens of right-wing Tories are preparing to rebel on watered-down plans to scrap all EU retained laws by the end of the year, with Jacob Rees-Mogg accusing Mr Sunak of “surrendering to the blob”.
Addressing a right-wing conference in Westminster on Monday, Ms Braverman said Conservatives had been “most successful when united against evils like communism”.
“I do want to sound a note of caution,” she told the National Conservative Conference. “One way that we Conservatives must distinguish ourselves from the left is by not devouring ourselves through fratricide … it is incumbent on Conservatives to find a prudent balance, not pick a side and start shooting.”
But Ms Braverman also risked stirring fresh rows inside her party with a tirade against multiculturalism, “political correctness”, transgender people and identity politics.
Ahead of official immigration figures released next week, predicted to show net migration at a record high of at least 700,000, she said the government “needs to get overall immigration numbers down”.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is believed to be stressing the benefits of legal migration amid continued skill shortages in some sectors, but Ms Braverman claimed there was “no good reason” why Britain could not train its own lorry drivers and fruit pickers to bring immigration down.
Ms Braverman told the audience that the nation must not “forget how to do things for ourselves”.
But food industry groups told The Independent it was not possible for shortages to be plugged with British workers alone, despite high-profile campaigns to attract and retain domestic staff.
Defra ministers are reportedly pushing the Home Office to increase the number of temporary visas for agricultural workers from overseas.
Meanwhile, education secretary Gillian Keegan is thought to have pushed back against Home Office proposals to limit the time foreign students can stay in Britain after finishing their course.
Downing Street insisted Ms Braverman’s immigration comments were in line with the government’s approach, with the prime minister’s official spokesperson saying: “She continues to represent the UK government views on all issues relating to the Home Office.”
But the home secretary strayed far outside her department’s remit during her speech – saying Tories should be “sceptical of self-appointed gurus, experts and elites who think they know best what is in the public’s interest”.
It was interrupted twice by Extinction Rebellion protesters, who also targeted Mr Rees-Mogg’s appearance earlier on Monday and said they wanted to “appeal directly to conference attendees and the public on the warning signs of fascism”.
Ms Braverman denied being racist and attacked left-wing politics, saying it was “making people feel terrible about our past”.
“White people do not exist in a special state of sin or collective guilt – nobody should be blamed for things that happened before they were born,” she added: “The defining feature of this country’s relationship with slavery is not that we practised it, but that we led the way in abolishing it.”
Ms Braverman also discussed transgender issues at several points, claiming that “radical gender ideology is leading to the mutilation and abuse of our children”.
“[It is a] fact that 100 per cent of women do not have a penis,” she added. “It is absurd that we find ourselves in a situation where this is a remotely controversial statement.”
After talking of her own parents’ arrival in Britain “through legal and controlled migration”, Ms Braverman said other immigrants “need to learn English and understand British social norms and mores – which is not to say that they cannot enrich and add to our culture.”
Mr Sunak is facing a rebellion by dozens of MPs on the Tory right when the EU Retained Law bill returns to the Commons, after the government dropped the “sunset” clause that would have automatically deleted thousands of Brussels legislation at the end of 2023.
Mr Rees-Mogg attacked the government’s decision to scale back post-Brexit plans to scrap EU laws as “pathetically under-ambitious” in his own speech to the right-wing conference.
Labour called the event “a carnival of conspiracy theory and self-pity”, with Keir Starmer telling his own MPs on Monday that the Tories were holding “mad hatters’ tea parties” at which they blamed everyone but themselves.
