Soella Braverman tells a Holocaust survivor she will not apologize for her ‘invasion’ speech | refugees

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Soella Braverman said she would not apologize for her language after a Holocaust survivor told the Home Secretary that her calling immigrants an “invasion” was akin to the rhetoric the Nazis used to justify killing her family.

Braverman confronted Joan Salter, 83, during a meeting in her constituency of Fareham in Hampshire on Friday night.

Salter, who was honored with an MBE for her work in Holocaust education, likened Braverman’s rhetoric about immigrants trying to cross the Channel to those used by the Nazis during World War II.

“I am a child Holocaust survivor,” Salter said in a video of the exchange provided by the charity Freedom from Torture.

In 1943 I was forced to flee my birth country in Belgium and crossed war-torn Europe and dangerous seas until I was finally able to come to the United Kingdom in 1947.

“When I hear you use words against refugees like ‘swarms’ and ‘invasion’, I am reminded of the language used to dehumanize my family and millions of others and justify their killing.

“Why do you find the need to use this kind of language?”

Braverman thanked Salter for her question, and said she “shares a great deal of concern and sympathy” about the “challenge” of illegal immigration, adding that her parents were not born in Britain.

Speaking of her parents, Braverman said: “They owe everything to this country and they taught me a deep, deep love for Britain and the British people. Their tolerance, their generosity, their decency, their fair play.”

It also means that we must not shy away from saying there is a problem. There is a huge problem that we are facing now when it comes to illegal immigration, the scale of which we did not know before.

I will not apologize for the language I used to prove the extent of the problem. I see my job as being honest with the British people and honest with the British people.

“I will not shy away from hard truths and I will not hide the truth we are all observing.”

Braverman added that she was “incredibly proud” of the UK’s recent immigration record but added, “We have a problem with people who take advantage of our generosity, break our laws and undermine our system.”

“We must accept the enormity of the problem if we are to have any chance of solving it,” she said.

Braverman’s answer drew applause from the audience.

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Born in Brussels in 1940 to Polish Jewish parents, Salter Fanny Zimetbaum was three months old when the Nazis invaded Belgium.

After the invasion, she fled to France with her mother and sister before the Red Cross took her to the United States in 1943.

Salter remained in foster care in the United States until she was reunited with her parents in 1947 in London, where she has lived ever since.

Less than a week after taking over as Home Secretary under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Braverman referred to her job as “about stopping an invasion on our south coast”.

She had previously held the position under Liz Truss from September 6 until October 19, when she resigned for breaching Ministerial Code by sharing an official document from her personal email address.

The Home Office said the shortened version of the video showing Braverman’s response at the Fareham event should be removed from social media because it “misrepresents the interaction”.

A spokesperson for the department said: “The Home Secretary attended an event last night and answered questions, including about immigration policy. Screenshots of a conversation with a Holocaust survivor are circulating online. The video has been heavily edited and does not reflect the full exchange.

The Home Secretary listened carefully to the testimony. I thanked her for sharing her story. The Home Secretary also expressed her sympathy and explained why it was so important to address illegal immigration.

“Because the footage misrepresents interaction around a sensitive area of ​​politics, we have asked the organization that posted the video to remove it.”

Braverman did not use the word “swarm” in the records, but it was used by prominent politicians including former Prime Minister David Cameron and former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage.

In July 2015, Cameron told reporters that a “crowd of people” “come across the Mediterranean in search of a better life.”

The same month, Farage said during an interview with ITV that he was “stuck on the motorway surrounded by swarms of would-be immigrants” who “tried the back door of the car to see if they could get in”.

Later, he stepped back, saying in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today show that he did not “use language like that” when asked if he was referring to the “swarms” of immigrants.

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