'Racist bigot': Tory backlash grows over Braverman’s demeaning remarks

UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman is facing backlash from more senior Tory ministers and peers who think that she is damaging the party’s reputation with her "racist" comments and compromising the party’s agenda for personal goals. 

The backlash demonstrates a growing outrage among Conservative MPs and peers over Braverman's recurrent use of racially offensive rhetoric.

Tory ministers and peers are concerned that the inflammatory remarks of Braverman on several cases in the past months are increasing community tensions which might cause the party to lose potential votes that they definitely need in the coming elections.

In an interview with the Guardian, a former senior minister from Boris Johnson’s government described Braverman as a “real racist bigot”. 

They also stated that “the country is not as grotesque as she makes it out to be” and that she dropped the “Conservative reputation on discrimination to a new low which also gives the country a bad name”.

In the past weeks, The Home Secretary’s racist remarks regarding the British Pakistani men were met with concern and anger among the British public. She argued that the grooming gangs mostly consisted of British Pakistani men who were “pursuing, raping, drugging and harming” especially “white British girls.” 

She was also highly criticised and condemned for her inhumane comments about migrants. She described the arrival of  migrants to the UK as an “invasion” and said, "the British people deserve to know which party is serious about stopping the invasion on our southern coast and which party is not."

Most recently, she again became the focus of criticism because she allegedly said Essex police who collected racist dolls from an Essex pub that they should “catch criminals” instead of dealing with “nonsense.”

Braverman’s remarks have also brought Prime Minister Rishi Sunak under enormous pressure. Tories warned him on Thursday that Baverman must be reined in for the party's welfare. 

The former minister whose name the Guardian did not reveal said that “Sunak needs to build upon foundations we already have, stop the culture wars and create change. But his inaction shows how insecure he is in his own ability.”

The former minister also indicated that the Home Secretary is weaponizing her own ethnicity to clear herself from racism accusations. “She’s not stupid, she believes she has a licence to say these things because she’s not white. But all her language does is exacerbate hatred”, they said.

According to some of her colleagues in the Conservative party, Braverman is deliberately continuing to make racist comments to charm party members to secure a strong position for herself in the leadership of the Tories and the UK in the coming elections.

Another criticism against Braverman came from Tory peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi who emphasized that Braverman’s racist remarks reveal that she is not qualified to be the Home Secretary of the UK. Warsi said: “Whether this consistent use of racist rhetoric is strategy or incompetence, however, doesn’t matter. Both show she is not fit to hold high office.”

Warsi also warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and said that “the Prime Minister has to get a really strong message that this kind of rhetoric, whether it's on small boats, whether it's the stuff she was saying on the weekend which is not based on evidence, not nuanced, not kind of explanatory in any way, it has got to stop.”