UN rebukes Suella Braverman over her attack on refugee convention

Suella Braverman told the American Enterprise Institute that the west faced an ‘existential challenge’. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

The UN’s refugee agency has rebuked Suella Braverman after she claimed that world leaders had failed to make wholesale reform of human rights laws because of fears of being branded “racist or illiberal”.

The UNHCR issued a highly unusual statement on Tuesday defending the 1951 refugee convention and highlighting the UK’s record asylum claim backlog.