Rishi Sunak said he agrees multiculturalism has not failed but claimed there is an “enormous sense of frustration” in the UK over “illegal” migration.
The Prime Minister said he believed Britons should be proud that immigrants are able to be successful in the country, arguing the UK is “better than any country in the world” at enabling this.
But Mr Sunak said people arriving in the UK should “sign up to British values” and integrate, before he also highlighted a need to stop small boats crossing the Channel.
We're all living proof of the fact that immigrants can come here, do well and that's something I think we do better that any country in the world— Rishi Sunak
He was challenged over immigration and remarks made by Home Secretary Suella Braverman as he visited ITV’s This Morning for an interview with Alison Hammond and Dermot O’Leary.
During a visit to the US last week, Mrs Braverman attacked the “misguided dogma” of multiculturalism and said it had “failed”.
Mrs Braverman used her speech at this week’s Conservative Party conference to warn of a “hurricane” of migrants, comments which caused unease among some senior Tories.
O’Leary said: “We want to talk about immigration and multiculturalism because this is something me and Alison care about, we’re both children of immigrants, as are you.
“So when you hear your Home Secretary talk about the hurricane of mass migration, are you not embarrassed and ashamed when you hear words like that?”
Mr Sunak said he thought the “debate gets charged a lot” before saying: “If you just take a step back, what do I think we all agree on? We all agree that Britain is an incredibly welcoming place.
“We’re all living proof of the fact that immigrants can come here, do well and that’s something I think we do better that any country in the world.”
Told the UK has not failed in any way, Mr Sunak replied: “No, no, I think it’s something we should be so proud of as Brits, it’s something that we do better than anyone else.
“But I think we also agree a couple of other things – when people do come here they should integrate, they should sign up to British values so we have that shared understanding amongst us.”
He added: “I think we also all agree that it should be us who decides who comes here not criminal gangs.
“Illegal migration isn’t right, not least because people are being exploited and die when they make these crossings, but also because we’re a compassionate country who wants to welcome people here, we’re not going to be able to do that if our system is overloaded with people who have jumped the queue and that’s why I want to be able to stop the boats.”
Pressed further over Mrs Braverman’s “hurricane” remark, Mr Sunak replied: “There is an enormous sense of frustration that there are tens of thousands of people who have come here illegally over the past few years and that’s not right and I think most people in their local community may now have a hotel that’s been put over to house illegal migrants.”
Mr Sunak said this situation needed to be brought to an end, but was pressed over concerns that the language used was demonising the people travelling to the UK.
Mr Sunak said: “They are being exploited by criminal gangs and that’s why I’ve said it’s got to be us, it’s got to be the British people who should decide who comes to our country and not criminal gangs.”
Home Office figures show more than 25,000 people have been detected crossing the English Channel in small boats so far this year.
There were 45,774 arrivals in 2022.
The total number of small boat arrivals so far this year is about 23% below the equivalent number at this point last year.
Just over 33,000 people had made the crossing by October 2 2022, compared with 25,330 detected so far in 2023.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Sunak said he hopes his plan to phase out smoking will “transform society”.
The Prime Minister set out plans to introduce a new law banning tobacco sales to anybody born on or after January 1 2009 as well as moves to tackle the sale of disposable vapes to children.
He said: “We want a whole generation to grow up without smoking and I think it will transform society and we know this has worked because when we’ve done it in the past, when we took the smoking age up from 16 to 18, when the US took their smoking age up from 18 to 21 it made a big difference, you saw smoking rates come way down.”
