Braverman’s ‘racist words’ dragging Sunak into the gutter
A FORMER Tory Party chairwoman has urged Conservative MPs to speak out against Suella Braverman’s “racist” words, warning the party heads toward Donald Trump-style oblivion.
In a stinging put-down, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi questioned whether the Home Secretary has the skills needed to do her job, and said Rishi Sunak needs to “get a grip”.
The Tory peer and former Cabinet member spoke out after dozens of high-profile figures wrote to the Prime Minister demanding action over Ms Braverman’s hateful rhetoric.
Baroness Warsi said: “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.”
Ms Braverman sparked fury after saying British Pakistani men “hold cultural values at odds with British values” when talking about grooming gangs.
GLARING
And she came under fire after criticising police for seizing racist golliwog dolls from a pub in Essex after complaints from the public.
Baroness Warsi said: “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 incapable of making policy based on evidence and doesn’t have the skill set to communicate policies in a way which doesn’t create these huge glaring misunderstandings.”
The Tory grandee continued: “It just disturbs me that first it was migrants, then it was asylum seekers, then 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, saying they used to hang them in Mississippi. “It’s just shocking. There’s either an issue of deliberate divisive rhetoric or an issue of competence. Either way the PM’s got to get a grip on this.”
The heads of 43 healthcare organisations – including the NHS Muslims Network, the British Indian Doctors Association and British Egyptian Medical Association – have written to the PM asking for Ms Braverman, a former lawyer, to apologise.
Baroness Warsi said: “I’m astonished someone who had legal training cannot communicate in any sensible, evidence-based grown-up way.”
Last week Baroness Warsi tweeted that Ms Braverman was “trying to audition as a Trump tribute act”.
The Tory peer said she stood by the remark: “We’ve seen how ideologues who are not centre-ground Conservatives damage their political parties as Trump has done to the Republican Party. It’s a responsibility of all centreground Conservatives to speak out.”
“Lots of colleagues who are really disturbed by this... about the impact this will have in their constituencies.”
The British Pakistani Foundation urged Mr Sunak to ensure his government is not seen as “normalising bigotry”. Baroness Warsi said: “It shows how much political discourse has sunk into the gutter.”
She was also alarmed by Labour attacks on Mr Sunak, following an advert which claimed he did not think paedophiles should be locked up.
Baroness Warsi added: “It’s a spiral down, once you start that – we go low, they go lower – where do we all end up? Who benefits?” Ms Braverman was asked for a comment.