A well-respected Tory grandee has slammed the current Home Secretary for "racist rhetoric and rabble rousing". Former Conservative Party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi says that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak needs to "get a grip" on Suella Braverman.
Baroness Warsi also questioned whether the Home Secretary has the skills needed to do her job. The Conservative peer and former cabinet member has spoken out over Ms Braverman's hateful rhetoric.
Several high-profile figures have also written to the Mr Sunak demanding action after Ms Braverman sparked fury claiming British Pakistani men “hold cultural values at odds with British values” when talking about grooming gangs. She also came under fire after she criticised police for seizing racist golliwog dolls from a pub in Essex after complaints from the public.
Baroness Warsi told MirrorOnline: "I genuinely felt with the change in leadership with Rishi Sunak becoming Prime Minister that we were going to return to some level of grown-up politics. I just think the Home Secretary keeps dragging him back into the gutter."
She went on: "I think we need to make it clear that this isn't going to be our strategy for the next 18 months - racist rhetoric and rabble rousing. The alternative explanation is that this is a Home Secretary who is incapable of making policy based on evidence and doesn't have the skillset to communicate policies in a way which don't create these huge glaring misunderstandings in the way she seems to do so."
The ex-Tory chief continued: "It just disturbs me that first it was migrants, then it was asylum seekers, then it was British Pakistani males. Today she's defending a landlord who thinks it's ok to have golliwogs hanging in his pub and talk about it on social networks and say they used to hang them in Mississippi not so long ago.
"And she felt the need to come out and defend that individual. It's just shocking. There's either an issue of deliberate divisive rhetoric or there's an issue of competence, but either way the Prime Minister's got to get a grip on this."
Baroness Warsi said she was alarmed that a former lawyer like Ms Braverman could be so provocative, saying: "I'm astonished that someone who's had legal training just cannot seem to communicate in any sensible evidence-based grown-up way."
It comes after the heads of 43 diverse healthcare organisations, including the NHS Muslims Network, the British Indian Doctors Association and British Egyptian Medical Association. have written to the PM asking for the Home Secretary to apologise. Baroness Warsi said she hoped it would spur Mr Sunak into action.
Last week she claimed on Twitter that Ms Braverman was "trying to audition as a Trump tribute act".
The Tory peer said: "We've seen how ideologues who are not centre-ground conservatives damage their political parties as Trump has done to the Republican Party and the Republican brand that it takes generations to recover. I think it's a responsibility of all centre ground conservatives to speak out."
She said Ms Braverman's conduct is causing a lot of concern across the party, stating: "I've had lots of colleagues who are really disturbed by this. People who would consider themselves to be quite supportive traditionally of Suella Braverman who are really disturbed by this and concerned about the impact this will have in their constituencies."
In a letter to the PM, the British Pakistani Foundation (BPF) called on Mr Sunak to ensure his government is not seen as "encouraging and normalising bigotry" after the Home Secretary's "irresponsible words".
Baroness Warsi said: "The fact that they have chosen to do that shows how much the political discourse has sunk into the gutter and people feel the need to start speaking out, they feel we're at a pivotal moment."
She said she was also alarmed by Labour attacks on Mr Sunak, following an advert which claimed he did not think paedophiles should be locked up. It's a spiral down, once you start that we go low they go lower where do we all end up?" she asked.
"Who benefits from this? How does this impact and make better the daily grind that people are suffering?
"How does what the Home Secretary has done make our children safer? Half a million of them who were abused every year.
"One in 20 children are sexually exploited. How after what she has said does that make them safe? And how after Labour's attack ad are those victims any safer?"
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Home Secretary has been clear that all despicable child abusers must be brought to justice. And she will not shy away from telling hard truths, particularly when it comes to the grooming of young women and girls in Britain’s towns who have been failed by authorities over decades.
“As the Home Secretary has said, the vast majority of British-Pakistanis are law-abiding, upstanding citizens but independent reports were unequivocal that in towns like Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford cultural sensitivities have meant thousands of young girls were abused under the noses of councils and police.
“That’s why we have announced a raft of measures, including a new police taskforce and mandatory reporting, to ensure this horrific scandal can never happen again, and bring members of grooming gangs to justice for the victims.”
