01 October 2023 , 09:47
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Ex-Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel has accused Suella Braverman of desperately seeking attention with a recent hard-line speech on multiculturalism.
Ms Braverman sparked outrage by telling an American audience that multiculturalism has "failed" and illegal migration poses an "existential challenge". The Home Secretary attracted praise from far-right extremists for her speech, where she said gay people or women fearing discrimination should not qualify for asylum in the UK. She also suggested rules protecting refugees drawn up in the aftermath of the Second World War should be axed.
Dame Priti, who ran the Home Office from 2019 to 2022, took a swipe at her successor, saying the rant was "not a substitute for delivery". She told Sky News: "To me this is very much making interventions, statements, but actually we have to be realistic here that's not a substitute for delivery around changes to policy in Government.
"I don't know what the intention was around that. It might just be to get attention, to have the dividing lines... as we go into a run up to a general election." Dame Priti, whose parents came to the UK from Uganda in the 1960s, told presenter Trevor Phillips that she was a product of integration and multiculturalism.
"You and I are sitting here today, we are the products of actual integration, multiculturalism, dynamic communities, people who love our country, want to contribute to our country, along with a hell of a lot of other people that have done exactly the same. I think that is something we should be proud of in our country."
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Downing Street signed off Ms Braverman's speech in Washington last week, but Mr Sunak, who is the first British-Asian Prime Minister, refused to endorse her claims that multiculturalism has failed.
Around a dozen Tory MPs have reportedly complained to the whips about Ms Braverman's divisive claims that some asylum seekers pretend to be gay to "game the system".
Meanwhile, Ms Braverman used a newspaper interview to attack "virtue signalling" celebrities like Sir Elton John who condemned her speech. Sir Elton said she risked "further legitimising hate and violence" against LGBT people. But the Home Secretary told the Mail On Sunday that celebrity critics were "out-of-touch pampered elites" who were "virtue-signalling".
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