Suella Braverman rhetoric fuels racism, claims Tory peer

Tory adjacent Baroness Warsi has warned that what she describes arsenic Suella Braverman's "racist rhetoric" is putting British Asian families astatine risk.

The peer, the UK's archetypal South Asian furniture minister, claimed the location secretary's comments connected tiny boats and grooming gangs "emboldened racists".

She told the BBC she feared a backlash against British Asians and had told her dada not to locomotion location from the mosque.

Ms Braverman's spokesperson said she would "not shy distant from hard truths".

Ahead of announcing plans for a caller constabulary taskforce to tackle grooming gangs, Ms Braverman said groups of "vulnerable achromatic English girls" were being "pursued and raped and drugged and harmed by gangs of British Pakistani men who've worked successful kid maltreatment networks".

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak - who jointly launched the taskforce with Ms Braverman - said victims and whistleblowers had often been ignored by the authorities due to the fact that of "cultural sensitivity and governmental correctness".

In an interrogation connected Sky TV's Sophy Ridge connected Sunday, the location caput said grooming gangs had a "predominance" of "British Pakistani males, who clasp taste values wholly astatine likelihood with British values".

Ms Braverman said constabulary and assembly workers had "turned a unsighted oculus to these signs of maltreatment retired of governmental correctness and retired of fearfulness of being called racist" - referencing findings successful respective reports into grooming successful Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford.

In a bid of associated letters to the premier minister, a conjugation of groups including elder medics and the British Pakistan Foundation called connected Ms Braverman to retreat her comments, which immoderate labelled arsenic "inflammatory and divisive".

Baroness Warsi, who chaired the Conservative Party betwixt 2010 and 2012, backed the letters, adding that the location secretary's comments had near susceptible British Asians fearful of attacks.

"I've had to pass my lad that if radical commencement swearing and shouting, to conscionable region himself from the concern to debar it escalating into an attack. Why should I beryllium having these conversations with my son?," she told BBC News.

"I've had to archer my dada if you spell to the mosque don't locomotion home, we request to person idiosyncratic taking him and bringing him backmost each day."

She said Ms Braverman "was tarnishing a full community" by focusing connected British Pakistanis, who were a "small subset" of perpetrators successful a discourse of fractional a cardinal children a twelvemonth being sexually abused.

"If you look astatine the interviews she did, she gave nary caveats," Baroness Warsi added.

"Ms Braverman fundamentally said radical intersexual exploitation is simply a British Pakistani problem. At nary constituent successful those interviews did she accidental it was a tiny number of British Pakistanis committing these crimes."

A 2020 Home Office survey found offenders successful kid grooming gangs "are astir commonly white", based connected information from conscionable nether fractional of each constabulary forces.

The aforesaid study recovered "a number" of high-profile cases had "mainly progressive men of Pakistani ethnicity", but besides highlighted "significant limitations to what tin beryllium said astir links betwixt ethnicity and this signifier of offending".

In 2012, portion serving successful David Cameron's cabinet, Baroness Warsi said a "small minority" of British Pakistani men judge "white girls are just game" for intersexual abuse.

Referencing her erstwhile comments, Baroness Warsi said: "I americium the past idiosyncratic to accidental don't person bold and brave conservations with section communities - but they request to beryllium based successful fact.

"Suella Braverman needs to recognize that erstwhile she opens her rima she's speaking arsenic a location secretary. She can't usage escaped language.

"This benignant of 'shock jock' connection is becoming a signifier with her. It feels similar she much funny successful the rhetoric and the sound of creating a civilization warfare than the existent job."

Writing successful the Guardian, Baroness Warsi added: "Whether this accordant usage of racist rhetoric is strategy oregon incompetence, however, doesn't matter. Both amusement she is not acceptable to clasp precocious office."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "The Home Secretary has been wide that each despicable kid abusers indispensable beryllium brought to justice.

"And she volition not shy distant from telling hard truths, peculiarly erstwhile it comes to the grooming of young women and girls successful Britain's towns who person been failed by authorities implicit decades.

"As the Home Secretary has said, the immense bulk of British-Pakistanis are law-abiding, upstanding citizens but autarkic reports were unequivocal that successful towns similar Rochdale, Rotherham and Telford taste sensitivities person meant thousands of young girls were abused nether the noses of councils and police.

"That's wherefore we person announced a raft of measures, including a caller constabulary taskforce and mandatory reporting, to guarantee this horrific ungraded tin ne'er hap again, and bring members of grooming gangs to justness for the victims."

Ms Braverman's comments were supported successful a associated connection from UK Sikh and Hindu religion groups. The letter praised Ms Braverman, for "courageously speaking retired astir the implicit practice of British Pakistani men successful enactment grooming gangs".

The letter, signed by crossbench adjacent Lord Singh of Wimbledon, said it was "false to statement each Pakistani Muslim men arsenic groomers" but politicians should not "allow governmental correctness to stifle obtaining justness for victims by addressing the actions of a minority".

Baroness Warsi besides criticised Ms Braverman's claims that "100 cardinal people" astir the satellite could suffice for extortion nether existent UK asylum laws - and that "they are coming here".

This refers to radical forcibly displaced astir the satellite as recorded by the UN's exile agency. There is thing to suggest they would each privation to travel to the UK.

The Home Office said Ms Braverman meant that amerciable migrants were coming to the UK - pointing retired that determination had been a 500% summation successful tiny vessel crossings successful 2 years.

Small vessel arrivals accounted for astir 45% of asylum applications made successful 2022.