Migration hurricane is coming, Suella Braverman tells Tories

Home Secretary Suella Braverman has said a “hurricane” of migration is coming to the UK, in a hard-hitting Tory conference speech.

In an address to party activists, she said moving to a richer country had become an “entirely realistic prospect” for “billions of people”.

She said politicians had previously been “too squeamish” to take action.

Two MPs from a different wing of the Tory party queried her comments, with one saying they weren’t helpful.

Ms Braverman promised to do “whatever it takes” to stop small boat crossings, adding immigration was “already too high”.

Her speech did not announce new migration policies, but saw her win applause from the party grassroots by pledging tougher action.

Ms Braverman told the conference that politicians had failed to properly manage migration, and had been “far too squeamish about being smeared as racists”.

“Unprecedented” migration, she added, was “one of the most powerful reshaping our world”.

“The wind of change that carried my own parents across the globe in the 20th Century was a mere gust compared to the hurricane that is coming”.

“Because today, the option of moving from a poorer country to a richer one is not just a dream for billions of people, it is an entirely realistic prospect.”

In response, former justice secretary Robert Buckland said politicians needed to be responsible about language, saying: “I think talking about hurricanes or weather extremes isn’t helpful unless you explain the why.”We know what’s happening in the world, with climate change, with war in the sub-Saharan part of Africa – we are seeing mass movements of population, there is no doubt about that. But we need to talk about the why before we start using alarmist language.

“Let’s do so in a way that really understands the breadth of the problem. And understands it’s only through international action that we’re really going to be able to deal with this problem, and deal with it at source, which seems to me to be the best way to deal with mass migration.”

The speech also saw a fellow Tory politician kicked out of the conference hall for heckling her, after she described “gender ideology” as “poison”.

Andrew Boff, a Conservative member of the London Assembly, was filmed describing the comments as “trash”, before being escorted out of the conference hall by security.

The incident came during a section of the speech in which she said that “gender ideology, white privilege, anti-British history” had become “embedded” in corporate Britain and parts of the public sector.

Speaking to the BBC after being removed, Mr Boff, a patron of the LGBT+ Conservative group, called her comments “disgusting”, adding he hoped they don’t “become part of the rhetoric” in the run-up to the next general election.

Mr Buckland has since said Mr Boff has had his conference pass removed – but the home secretary has called for him to be “forgiven and let back into conference”.

Mr Buckland questioned the security response, adding he hoped the situation could be resolved.

“It’s one thing to stop Just Stop Oil type protesters from disrupting a speech, it’s quite another to remove a long-established and senior member of the Conservative Party from just voicing his opinion,” he added.